trst 


ENGLISH  LITERARY  MISCELLANY 


ENGLISH  LITERARY  MISCELLANY 


BY 
THEODORE  W.  HUNT 

Professor  of  English  in  Princeton  University 
Author  of  n  English  Prose  and  Prose  Writers  " 
"  Literature :  Its  Principles  and  Problems,"  etc. 


SECOND  SERIES 


OBERL1N,  OHIO 
BIBLIOTHECA  SACRA  COMPANY 

1914 


Copyright  1914  by 
BIBLIOTHECA  SACRA  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 
Published,  April,  1914 


The  News  Printing  Company 
Oberlin,  Ohio.  U.S.A. 


TO 
MY  COLLEAGUES 

IN  THE  ENGLISH  DEPARTMENT  OF 
PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY 


331040 


PREFACE 

THE  papers  herein  presented  are  discussions 
within  the  definite  province  of  English  Letters. 
They  are  developed  along  historical  and  critical 
lines  and  seek  to  relate  the  study  of  our  vernacu- 
lar with  the  manifest  progress  of  English  thought 
and  life.  As  will  be  seen,  some  of  the  topics 
treated  are  of  a  general,  comprehensive  nature  and 
range,  but  sufficiently  illustrated  by  concrete  ex- 
ample to  make  them  intelligible  and  practically 
helpful  to  the  literary  student,  while  others  are 
more  specific.  The  articles  have  all  appeared  in 
the  columns,  respectively,  of  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra, 
The  Methodist  Review,  The  Presbyterian  Review, 
and  The  Book-Lover.  These  papers  constitute  a 
companion  volume  to  the  English  Literary  Miscel- 
lany already  published. 

PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY 
April,  1914 


SUMMARY  OF  CONTENTS 


PART  FIRST:    GENERAL  DISCUSSIONS 

1.-THE  ELIZABETHAN  AGE  OF  ENGLISH  LETTERS 

English  Letters  at  the  Death  of  Chaucer     ....  3 

From  Chaucer  to  Spenser 4 

Causes    of    Decline 5 

Some  Favoring  Influences 6 

The    Invention  of   Printing 6 

Revolution  in  Classical  Culture 7 

Free  Discussion 8 

Opening  of  the  Golden  Age — Reasons 9 

The  Friendly  Attitude  of  the  Government   ....  11 

Characteristics  of  the  Age 12 

Literary  Versatility 12 

Englishness 13 

Catholicity 14 

Protestantism         14 

Suggestions 16 

Golden  Ages  are  Relative 16 

Later  Influences  of  this  Age 17 

Close    Relations    of    English    Literature    and    the 

English  Language 17 

Signs  of  a  Later  Golden  Age 18 

H.-THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  DRAMA 

The  Beginnings  of  English  Dramatic  History     ...  20 

Attitude  of  the  Church  Fathers 21 

Classification  of  the  Early  English  Plays  ....  24 

Miracle  Plays  or  Mysteries 24 

Those  of  York,  Chester,  etc 26 

The  Moralities — Allegory  . 28 

Participation  of  the  Laity 29 


x  Summary  of  Contents 

Interludes  .and  Chronicle  Plays 3] 

Political  and  Religious  Relation 32 

First   Examples  of  Modern  Drama 33 

Confusion  of  Tragic  and  Comic 34 

"  Gorboduc  " 35 

"Ralph  Roister  Doister " 37 

The  Inherent  Ground  of  Dramatic  Art 39 

The  Method  of   its  Expression 41 

III —THE  TRANSITION  TO  MODERN  BRITISH  POETRY 

Periods  of  Permanence  and  Change 47 

Classification   of    Eras 49 

Character   of   the   Transition 50 

The  Need  of  a  Critical  Era 52 

Its    Necessary    Limits 53 

Historical  Causes  of  the  Transition 56 

Influence  of  Germany 56 

Revolutionary   Influence 59 

Features   of   this   Influence 60 

Practical    Issues 60 

Beneficent    Change — Inquiry 61 

Revival    of   Early   English   Poetry 63 

Suggestions         

Importance  of  Feeling  in  Verse 

The  Next  Probable  Transition  in  Verse 


IV -ENGLISH  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

The   Age  of   Sidney   and   Bacon     .......  73 

Criticism  and  Authorship 73 

Special  Application  to  Verse 74 

Three    Pioneers 75 

Sir  Philip  Sidney— "An  Apologie  for  Poetrie  "  .  75 
George  Puttenhain — "The  Arte  of  English  Po- 

esie " 77 

William    Webbe — "A   Discourse   of   English   Po- 
etrie "         77 

Ben  Jonson — "  Discoveries,"  etc 78 

Lord    Bacon — "  Essays,"   etc 78 

The  Age  of  Dryden -.      .  79 

A  Herald  of  the  Philosophic  Method     ....  81 


Summary  of  Contents  xi 

True  to  Classical  and  Continental  Models   ...  81 

His   "  Essay   of   Dramatic  Poesy  ".....  82 

Comment  on    Shakespeare,   etc 82 

His  "Defense" 83 

Sir  William  Temple  and  Swift 83 

The  Spectator  and  Tatler 84 

Addison's    Review    of    "  Paradise    Lost "...  85 

Alexander  Pope — "  Essay  on   Criticism  "...  86 

The  Age  of  Samuel  Johnson 88 

The  Rambler,   Idler,   etc 89 

•  His   "Dictionary" 90 

His  "  Lives  of  the  English  Poets  " 91 

Johnson    and    Macaulay 92 

His   Comments   on   Milton,   Dry  den,    etc.     ...  92 

His  Defects   as  a   Critic 94 

The  Work  of  Burke,  Bentley,  Warton,  etc.     .      .  95 

The  Earlier   Modern   Era — Age  of   Coleridge     ...  97 

His  Deference  to  German  Models 98 

His   "  Biographia   Literaria  " 99 

His   Comments  on   Pope,    Wordsworth,    etc.     .      .  100 

His  "  Lectures  on  Shakespeare  and  the  Drama  "  .  101 

Critical  Principles 102 

The   Edinburgh   Review,    Quarterly,   etc.     ...  103 

The  Work  of  Wordsworth — "  Lyrical  Ballads  "     .  104 

Christopher    North — "  Noctes    Ambrosianre "     .      .  105 

Byron — "  English     Bards  "         105 

Hazlitt — "  Lectures  on  the  English  Poets,"  etc.     .  108 
Hallam — "  Introduction   to   the  Literature  of   Eu- 
rope "        106 

Lamb — "  Specimens   of   English    Dramatic   Poets "  106 

Macaulay — "  Essays " .  106 

De  Quincey — "  Biographical  Sketches  "   .      .      .      .106 

Shelley — "  Defense    of   Poetry  " 107 

The  Later   Era— Age  of  Arnold 109 

Arnold  and   Coleridge 109 

V.- ENGLISH  POET  LAUREATES 

Origin    of    the    Laureateship 112 

The    Earliest    Incumbents 115 

Later     Laureates — Spenser,     Jonson,     etc 116 

Dryden,    Southey,    etc 117 

Wordsworth,    Tennyson 120 

Austin,   Bridges 123 


xii  Summary  of  Contents 

PART  SECOND:  SPECIAL  DISCUSSIONS 
I -THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  GENIUS 

Various  Views  as  to  Genius 129 

Profound   Knowledge   of   Man   and   Men     .      .      .  130 

Knowledge  of  Truth  as  Truth 131 

Mental    Affluence    and    Versatility 132 

His    Imagination 134 

Pathos    and    Passion 135 

His  Twofold  Relation  to  his  Characters     .      .      .  -137 

Truth    to    Nature   and   Life .  138 

Inferences 139 

His    Latent    Ability 139 

His    Successors 140 

His  Consciousness  of  Power 142 

His    Tardy    Recognition 144 

II.-SHAKESPEAREANA 

Meaning   of   the  Term 147 

Few     Biographical     Data 149 

His    Education 151 

His   Religious   Beliefs   and   Life 153 

The   English  of   Shakespeare 156 

His   Use   of   Figure 160 

As   a    Dramatic  Artist 161 

His  Limitations 163 

His   Presence   in   our   Literature 166 

III.— THE  EPIC  VERSE  OF  MILTON,    •  PARADISE  LOST  • 

Classification  of  his  Work 170 

Preparations  for  his  Epics 171 

Addison's  Critique — Its  Influence 174 

Analysis  of  "  Paradise  Lost  " 175 

Shakespeare    and    Milton 176 


Nummary  of  Contents  xiii 

Sources  of  the  Epic 177 

Scripture 177 

The  Greek  and  Roman  Classics 178 

General    History    and    Letters 179 

Union  of  Genius   and   Learning 180 

Defects    of    the    Epic 181 

Absence   of    Sustained    Passion 182 

Want    of    Flexibility 182 

Its    Merits 183 

Greatness  of  its  Conception 183 

Variety  and  Boldness  of  Imagery 184 

Suggestiveness    and    Stimulus 185 

General    Characteristics   of    his    Verse 186 

Christian   Spirit 186 

Sublimity 188 

Union  of  Epic  and  Lyric  Quality 190 


IV -THE  POETRY  OF  JOHN  KEATS 

His    Early    Life     . 192 

Literary  Tastes       .           193 

The   Attitude   of   the  Critics 194 

His  Poetic   Product 196 

Special    Features   of   his   Verse 197 

Its  Unconventional  Type 197 

His  Love  of  Nature  and  Outdoor  Life     .      .      .  199 

His  Poetic  Spirit 203 

Lyric   Quality   of   his    Songs 204 

His  Relation  to  Other  English  Poets     ....  209 

Chaucer,    Spenser,    etc 209 

His  Personal  and  Poetic  Limitations     ....  211 

His   Minor   Poems  214 


V.-THE  POETRY  OF  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Facts  of   Life 215 

His   Prose   Product 216 

Classification    of    his    Poems  217 


xiv  Summary  of  Contents 

Characteristics  of  his  Verse  .  218 

Classic  Taste — his  Meters 218 

Mental  Type 220 

Personality 222 

Poetic  Dignity  of  Diction  and  Manner  ....  224 

Limited  Descriptive  Range 227 

Religious  Speculation— Doubt 227 

His  Limitations  232 


VI.— THE  POETRY  OF  ROBERT  BROWNING 

His  Italian  Life 230 

His   Early   Poetic   Efforts 237 

Later    Verse — its   Amount 238 

His  Poetic  Personality 240 

Numerous   Followers 242 

Intellectuality    as    a    Poet 243 

Relation  of  Mind  and  Poetic  Skill 244 

Dramatic   Quality — Limitations       .  248 

Lyrical  Element  Involved   . 252 

Claims  as  a  Poetic  Artist 254 

His  View  of  Poetic  License 256 

The  Alleged  Obscurity  of  his  Verse 258 

His   Rank  and  Future  264 


VII— A  STUDY  OF  MRS.  BROWNING 

Mrs.   Browning  and  Robert  Browning 268 

Data    of    Life — Early    Writings 269 

The   Emphasis   of   Character 271 

Characteristics  of  her  Verse 273 

Scholarly   Quality — Classic  Culture 273 

Poetic    Quality    and    Genius 277 

Poetic   Imagination 278 

Poetic  Sensibility  and   Sympathy 279 

Poetic  Taste  and  Skill 281 

Practical     Aim                                                            ...  284 


Summary  of  Contents  xv 

Counter    Criticism 287 

Narrowness  of  Intellectual  Ran^e 287 

Tendency  to  the  Morbid  and  Subjective     .      .      .  290 

VIH.-THE  POETRY  OF  SWINBURNE 

Early   Life 293 

Early   Literary  Work 294 

His   Merits   and   Limitations 297 

His  Poetic   Passion 297 

In    Drama 298 

In  Lyric  Verse.  Civic,  etc 300 

His    Songs 302 

His   Poetic   Art 304 

Undue  Presence  of  the  Sensual 309 

Undue  Presence  of  the  Skeptical 311 

His   Prose 313 

His    Place    in    British    Verse  314 


ERRATUM 

Page  289,  line  5.       Insert  as  after  others. 


xiv  Summary  of  Contents 

Characteristics  of  his  Verse  .  218 

Classic  Taste — his  Meters 218 

Mental  Type 220 

Personality 222 

Poetic  Dignity  of  Diction  and  Manner  ....  224 

Limited  Descriptive  Range 227 

Religious  Speculation — Doubt 227 

His  Limitations  232 


VI— THE  POETRY  OF  ROBERT  BROWNING 

His  Italian  Life 23(3 

His  Early   Poetic    Efforts 237 

Later    Verse — its   Amount 238 

His  Poetic  Personality 240 

Numerous   Followers 242 

Intellectuality    as    a    Poet 243 

Relation  of  Mind  and  Poetic  Skill     -  *>** 


Poetic   Imagination 278 

Poetic  Sensibility  and   Sympathy 279 

Poetic  Taste  and  Skill 281 

Practical     Aim              284 


Summary  of  Contents  xv 

Counter    Criticism 287 

Narrowness  of  Intellectual  Rans;e 287 

Tendency  to  the  Morbid  and  Subjective     .      .      .  290 

VIII.-THE  POETRY  OF  SWINBURNE 

Early   Life 293 

Early   Literary  Work 294 

His   Merits   and    Limitations 297 

His  Poetic   Passion 297 

In    Drama 298 

In  Lyric  Verse.  Civic,  etc 300 

His    Songs 302 

His   Poetic   Art 304 

Undue  Presence  of  the  Sensual 309 

Undue  Presence  of  the  Skeptical 311 

His   Prose 313 

His    Place    in    British    Verse  314 


PART  FIRST 


GENERAL  DISCUSSIONS 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  AGE  OF  ENGLISH  LETTERS 

SHORTLY  after  the  death  of  Chaucer,  in  1400,  we 
enter  upon  one  of  those  periods  of  reaction  com- 
mon to  every  developing  literature,  and  which  it 
is  not  contradictory  to  say  are  an  indirect  proof, 
at  least,  that  it  is  developing.  Standing  at  the 
tomb  of  Chaucer,  we  seem  to  be  standing  at  the 
tomb  of  English  poetry.  The  earlier  centuries, 
from  Caedmon  onward,  were  speedily  succeeded  by 
the  disastrous  invasions  of  the  Danes,  and  by  the 
disturbing  influences  of  the  Norman  Conquest. 
After  the  close  of  the  Old  English  "  Chronicle,"  in 
1154,  and,  with  it,  the  close  of  the  Old  English 
literary  era,  the  original  poetic  spirit  was  some- 
what revived  in  Layamon's  "  Brut,"  in  the  Middle 
English  era,  but  its  expression  was  partial  and 
temporary.  Chaucer  was  the  main  factor  in  mak- 
ing the  fourteenth  century  what  it  is  in  English 
letters,  and  thus  definitely  distinguished  it  from 
that  which  immediately  preceded  and  followed  it. 
For  a  century  and  a  half,  literature  may  be  said  to 
have  been  in  abeyance  until  it  began  to  show  signs 
of  awakening  in  the  days  of  Caxton  and  through 

3 


4  General  Discussions 

his  personal  agency  as  a  printer  and  an  author. 
From  the  death  of  Chaucer  to  the  birth  of  Spenser, 
we  look  in  vain  for  any  high  degree  of  literary 
art  or  for  anything  like  an  unbroken  continuity  of 
acceptable  literary  product.  Of  that  portion  of  it 
which  included  the  century  from  Henry  the  Fourth 
to  Henry  the  Seventh,  we  may  safely  assert,  with 
Morley,  that  "  it  has  not  bred  for  us  a  single 
writer  of  the  foremost  rank."  This  is  especially 
true  of  English  verse,  in  that  English*  prose  had 
some  approximately  worthy  exponents  in  Fortes- 
cue,  Caxton,  and  Malory,  representing,  respec- 
tively, political  prose,  translation,  and  romance ; 
the  appearance  of  the  Paston  Letters,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  affording  the  first  creditable  illus- 
tration of  English  epistolary  writing.  In  the  long 
list  of  indifferent  poets,  even  the  most  charitable 
critic  can  pause  but  a  moment  to  cite  the  names 
of  Occleve,  Lydgate,  Skelton,  Hawes,  and  the 
Scottish  Dunbar,  and  James  the  First. 

The  half  century  between  Henry  the  Eighth 
and  Elizabeth  is  a  brighter  era,  and  yet  more  sig- 
nificant as  an  era  of  promise  and  preparation  than 
as  one  of  actual  literary  achievement.  The  gener- 
ous critic  need  not  tarry  long,  as  he  scans  the  roll 
of  authors,  noting  the  names  of  Heywood  and 


Elizabethan  Age  of  English  Letters  5 

Wyatt  and  Surrey.  If  we  seek  for  the  causes  of 
such  a  literary  decline  after  Chaucer,  one,  at  least, 
may  be  found  in  the  French  and  English  wars,  and 
the  later  Wars  of  the  Roses.  Kingly  ambition  and' 
mere  civil  advancement  took  the  place  of  all  high 
ideals  in  life  and  letters.  The. wealth  and  energies 
of  the  people  were  squandered  and  the  basest  pas- 
sions of  the  heart  developed.  Petty  and  personal 
issues  prevailed  instead  of  great  national  interests, 
and  the  result  was  necessarily  disastrous.  Such  an 
English  victory  as  that  at  Agincourt  was  in  some 
respects  an  injury  to  the  nation,  while  in  the 
domestic  discords  of  the  thirty  years'  war  the  red 
and  the  white  colors  were  more  prominent  than  was 
genuine  patriotism  or  the  cause  of  truth.  It  was 
this  ignoble  character  of  the  conflicts  that  degraded 
the  nation  and  the  language.  Apart  from  this,  lit- 
erature might  have  survived  in  some  honorable 
form  as  it  did  in  other  instances,  despite  the  evil 
effects  of  civil  strife.  Scotland  met  England  on 
the  field  of  Bannockburn,  and  Barbour  arose  as  a 
national  bard  to  sing  the  triumph.  Gower  pro- 
duced his  "  Vox  Clamantis "  during  the  brave 
struggle  of  the  English  yeomanry  for  their  rights, 
as  Milton  wrote  his  stirring  poetry  in  the  stormy 
days  of  the  Commonwealth.  Indeed,  an  honorable 


G  General  Discussions 

struggle  for  high  issues  may  tend  to  invigorate 
literature,  though  it  may  not  refine  it.  No  such 
struggle  was  waged,  and  had  it  not  been  for  some 
counter  tendencies  English  letters  would  have  suf- 
fered a  still  more  decided  decadence. 

1.  The  first  of  these  significant  influences  was 
the  invention  of  printing,  in  1440,  and  its  introduc- 
tion into  England  in  1477.  Caxton,  the  first  Eng- 
lish printer,  but  little  knew  of  the  treasure  he 
brought  with  him  from  Holland,  and  how  it  was 
to  enrich  England  and  the  world.  Books  and  pam- 
phlets in  the  native  tongue  now  took  the  place  of 
swords  and  camps,  and  the  face  of  literature  was 
at  once  changed.  Monasteries  were  now  dissolved, 
manuscripts  were  circulated,  and  problems  long 
unsettled  forced  to  issue.  Henry  the  Eighth, 
whatever  his  motive,  never  did  a  better  work  than 
when  he  dissolved  these  monastic  centers.  Not 
only  did  he  thus  modify  the  extreme  Romish  pow- 
er and  quell  discontent  by  the  division  of  monastic 
spoils,  but  positively  aided  the  cause  of  letters  and 
of  learning  by  the  free  diffusion  of  knowledge.  A 
healthful  mental  activity  at  once  took  the  place  of 
a  cloistered  piety,  and  the  subtle  distinctions  of 
the  schoolmen  gave  way  to  the  more  practical 
issues  of  the  Modern  Era.  Some  historians  have 


Elizabethan  Age  of  English  Letters  fy 

seen  fit  to  magnify  the  benefits  of  the  monasteries, 
and  to  say,  with  Warton,  that  "  their  dissolution 
under  Henry  the  Eighth  gave  a  temporary  check 
to  letters  in  England."  If  so,  the  check  was  tem- 
porary only,  and  made  the  subsequent  movement 
to  higher  things  all  the  more  vigorous  and  perma- 
nent. Monasteries,  it  may  be  said,  are  helpful  or 
harmful  according  to  era  and  environment.  In 
the  Middle  Ages,  they  were  essential  to  the  con- 
servation of  scholarship  and  letters.  Even  in  the 
later  eras  of  the  foreign  and  domestic  wars,  the 
monks  were  busy  in  their  retreats  as  scholars  and 
guardians  of  learning.  After  printing  came  in, 
however,  all  was  changed,  verifying  the  prophecy 
of  the  Romish  priests,  "  We  must  root  out  print- 
ing, or  printing  will  root  out  us."  Mr.  Hallam  is, 
therefore,  just  as  consistent  in  decrying  such  an 
order  at  the  opening  of  the  sixteenth  century  as 
he  is  in  defending  it  prior  to  that  date. 

2.  A  second  influence  toward  better  things  is 
seen  in  a  revolution  in  classical  culture.  No  sooner 
were  these  monastic  centers  dissolved  than  the  at- 
tention of  the  people  was  turned  to  the  subject  of 
classical  training  and  general  education.  Erasmus 
wrote  that  Italy  alone  was  now  superior  to  Eng- 
land in  classical  learning.  Grocyn,  Linacre,  Lati- 


8  General  Discussions 

mer,  More,  Lily,  Lee,  Gardiner,  Wakefield,  and 
Tyndale  were  all  doing  a  scholarly  work  in  their 
respective  spheres,  and  classical  studies  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  were  placed  on  a  stable  basis 
through  the  efficient  influence  of  Smith  and  Cheke. 
Edward  the  Sixth,  Elizabeth,  and  Lady  Jane  Grey 
were  apt  classical  scholars.  Henry  the  Eighth 
was  an  author  and  patron  of  learning,  so  that  Sir 
Thomas  Elyot  in  his  efforts  to  purify  the  language 
had  the  positive  aid  of  the  King.  In  fact,  the 
schoolmaster  was  abroad.  Classical  scholars  came 
in  large  numbers  from  the  Continent. 

3.  Hence,  a  third  factor  in  the  upward  move- 
ment is  seen  in  that  free  discussion  now  obtained. 
Old  questions  were  agitated  in  a  better  spirit,  and 
new  ones  opened.  The  age  of  rational  inquiry 
was  at  hand,  the  sure  forerunner  of  the  English 
Reformation  and  the  Golden  Age.  The  absorbing 
attention  of  scholars  to  merely  partisan  and  profit- 
less problems,  especially  in  the  area  of  theological 
dispute,  now  gave  way  to  a  broader  outlook  and 
a  more  wholesome  method.  The  few  printers  of 
earlier  days  had  now  become  over  half  a  hundred. 
If  the  papal  Mary  retarded  for  the  time  the  prog- 
ress of  Protestantism  and  popular  rights,  Edward 
the  Sixth  and  Elizabeth  secured  their  permanent 


Elizabethan  Age  of  English  Letters  9 

advance,  and  the  Modern  Age  of  English  letters 
as  of  English  thought  and  life  was  inaugurated 
under  the  best  conditions. 

Such,  in  brief,  may  be  said  to  be  the  historical 
antecedents  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth,  which  largely 
made  it  what  it  proved  to  be  in  English  history 
and  literature.  We  are  now  in  position  to  study 
with  profit  this  Elizabethan  Era,  for  which  such 
preparation  had  been  made. 

The  old  distinction  of  the  periods  of  history, 
political  and  social,  is  equally  valid  in  literature. 
There  are  the  golden  and  silver  and  iron  ages  in 
literature.  The  Causes  and  Occasions  of  a  gold- 
en age  are  especially  interesting,  as  is  the  ques- 
tion of  its  decadence  and  disappearance.  The  first 
thought  relative  to  such  eras  is  that  there  is  in 
them  a  superhuman  as  well  as  a  human  element. 
There  is  a  providence  in  history  and  in  literary 
history  and  a  human  agency  as  well,  to  each  of 
which  elements  due  regard  is  to  be  given  by  the 
student  of  letters  lest  either  be  pushed  to  a  danger- 
ous extreme.  Such  ages  differ  materially  in  the 
causes  of  their  beginnings,  in  their  progress,  and 
in  the  character  and  measure  of  their  results, 
while  here  again  double  factors  are  at  work.  At 
one  time,  as  among  the  Hebrews,  the  divine  el- 


10  General  Discussions 

ement  is  prominent  in  an  order  of  literature  char- 
acteristically biblical  and  religious.  At  another 
time,  as  among  the  Greeks,  the  human  is  conspic- 
uous in  an  order  of  literature  characteristically 
secular  and  pagan.  At  times,  the  preparative 
agencies  are  clearly  traceable,  appearing  in  the 
form  of  literary  prophecy  and  promise,  type  and 
symbol.  At  times,  all  is  dim  and  uncertain  to  the 
most  observing  student,  and  the  best  that  can  be 
done  is  to  indulge  in  rational  hypothesis  till  new 
facts  appear  or  some  new  light  is  cast  upon  the 
mystery.  So,  as  to  the  final  outcome :  in  some  cases 
it  appears  normally  in  the  order  of  natural  liter- 
ary law ;  but  at  other  times  all  is  irregular  and 
abrupt,  so  that  the  new  order  of  things  when  fully 
instituted  induces  violent  reaction..  These  facts 
conceded,  however,  it  may  be  said  that  the  expla- 
nation of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth  as  one  of  these 
golden  eras  is  not  difficult  to  trace.  Clearer  at 
some  points  than  at  others,  it  is  in  the  main  intel- 
ligible. From  the  first  faint  beginnings  of  literary 
awakening,  in  the  Age  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  the 
principle  of  life  was  at  work.  Indifferentism  had 
given  place  to  a  rational  interest,  and  the  leading 
minds  of  the  time  were  looking  for  something  that 
would  suggest  at  least  the  days  of  Chaucer  and 


Elizabethan  Age  of  English  Letters          11 

Langland.  The  "  fullness  of  time  "  seemed  to  be 
near  at  hand.  The  papal  Henry  the  Eighth  gave 
place  just  in  time  to  the  young  Protestant  King 
Edward  the  Sixth,  the  papal  Mary  to  the  Protes- 
tant Elizabeth,  and  the  Vulgate  to  the  German 
Bible.  All  civic  and  religious  movements  seemed 
now  to  converge  and  find  their  best  embodiment 
in  the  Golden  Age. 

A  further  cause  is  found  in  the  friendly  atti- 
tude of  the  Government.  The  bigotry  of  Romanism 
and  the  bigotry  of  later  Anglicanism  and  Puritan- 
ism were  now  in  abeyance  in  favor  of  a  genuine 
religious  liberty  and  of  political  equality.  There 
was  now  no  such  political  obstacle  to  the  growth 
of  letters  as  existed  in  the  earlier  and  later  cen- 
turies. The  nation,  after  the  Spanish  war,  was  at 
peace,  and  the  best  influences  were  engaged  in  the 
expansion  of  the  nation's  intellectual  life.  During 
Elizabeth's  long  reign  of  forty-five  years,  authors 
were  encouraged  and  assisted,  while  the  general 
sympathies  of  the  age  were  friendly  to  rising  tal- 
ent. The  Queen  was  an  authoress  and  a  friend  of 
authors.  As  the  drama  in  its  beginnings  had  been 
confined  to  the  halls  of  royalty  and  the  universi- 
ties, and  as  private  companies  of  actors  were  re- 
sorting to  the  open  country  as  strolling  players, 


12  General  Discussions 

the  sagacious  Queen  saw  at  once  the  drift  of  na- 
tional taste  respecting  the  drama  and  did  what  she 
could  to  encourage  it.  England's  geographical 
position  was  also  favorable  to  the  rising  litera- 
ture. Shut  in  from  Continental  contact  in  its  most 
objectionable  features,  the  island  was  still  adja- 
cent to  all  the  best  influences  of  Continental 
countries. 

Some  of  the  chief  Characteristics  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan Age  may  now  be  noted. 

1.  First  of  all,  is  the  literary  versatility  of  the 
age,  the  richness  and  variety  of  its  literary  prod- 
uct. We  revert  at  once  to  Shakespeare,  evincing 
in  his  pages  the  special  knowledge  of  the  jurist, 
botanist,  soldier,  navigator,  artisan,  and  medical 
practitioner.  So  varied  is  this  ability  that  his 
claims  have  been  contested  and  his  dramas  par- 
celed out  among  numerous  authors.  So  Bacon 
was  versed  in  ancient  and  modern  lore,  was  a 
jurist,  philosopher,  parliamentarian,  and  author. 
So,  we  meet  with  Jonson,  Raleigh,  Sidney,  and 
Hooker.  We  find  poetry  of  all  classes  —  epic, 
dramatic,  lyric,  and  descriptive.  In  prose,  we  find 
history,  romance,  travels,  -philosophy,  theology, 
and  miscellaneous  criticism.  What  are  called  sec- 


Elizabethan  Age  of  English  Letters          13 

ondary   authors   would   rank   as   first-rate    authors 
in  less  brilliant  eras. 

2.  A  second  characteristic  is  seen  in  the  Eng- 
lishness  of  the  age.  The  earlier  Italian  influence 
which  came  in  at  the  time  of  Henry  the  Eighth 
had  materially  declined.  Gallic  influence,  though 
existing,  had  not  as  yet  become  a  decisive  factor, 
while  that  of  Germany  had  not  as  yet  appeared, 
save  in  so  far  as  seen  in  Luther's  version  of 
the  Scriptures.  The  era  was  eminently  English. 
Spenser  was  a  zealous  disciple  of  Chaucer.  For- 
eign books  now  appeared  in  English  dress.  Though 
Bacon  wrote  his  philosophy  in  Latin,  his  essays 
were  in  English.  Though,  in  the  reign  of  James 
the  First,  Spanish  influences  entered,  they  were  in 
no  sense  dominant.  The  conceits  of  euphuism, 
borrowed  from  the  Continent,  affected  but  the  sur- 
face of  literature.  Servitude  to  alien  peoples  was 
now  forsworn,  and  the  best  authors  were  increas- 
ingly loyal  to  the  home  speech.  Men  of  all  classes 
were  doing  their  own  thinking.  If  the  Queen 
could  read  Greek,  she  was  careful  to  employ 
Ascham  to  conserve  the  interests  of  the  native 
English.  It  was  more  than  an  era  of  reformation. 
It  was  an  era  of  formation,  positive  and  construc- 
tive, and  mainly  in  behalf  of  national  interests. 


14  General  Discussions 

3.  The    catholicity   of    the    age    is    noteworthy. 
The  literature  was  manly,  and,  though  the  nation 
in  its  new  life  was  in  its  youth,  the  authors  were 
mature.     In  this  respect,  no  age,  according  to  Hal- 
lam,   has    surpassed   it.      The    writers     understood 
themselves  and  the  world,  and  were  able  to  inter- 
pret man  to  man  as  could  not  have  been  possible 
in  any  previous  era.     Even  Chaucer  could  not,  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  look  out  upon  as  wide  a 
horizon  as  did  the  Elizabethans.    Hence,  the  poet- 
ry  of  the  time   naturally  assumed   dramatic   form 
as  that  form  by  which  man  might  best  reveal  him- 
self to  his   fellows.     It  was   because   Shakespeare 
had  more  of  this  cosmopolitan  character  than  any 
other  author  of  his  time  that  he  was  the  chief  of 
dramatists,  as,  also,  the  most  representative  spirit 
of  the  Golden  Age.     It  was  an  essentially  human 
era,  when  the  duties,  rights,  and  liberties  of  men 
were  more  pronounced  than  ever  before. 

4.  The  era  was  specifically  Protestant.     It  was 
the    age    of    the    great    religious    and    Protestant 
reformation,  and  the  rising  literature  at  once  felt 
its  influence.     The  English  Bible  now  entered,  as 
never  before,  into  the  heart  and  life  of  the  people, 
and  its  beneficent  effect  cannot  be   overestimated. 
Not  in  the  days  of  Wyclif,   or  even   of  Tyndale, 


Elizabethan  Age  of  English  Letters          15 

was  it  so  potent,  as  it  had  now  become  an  accred- 
ited factor  in  English  civilization  and  life.  The 
attempt  made  by  Mr.  Buckle  to  explain  such  an 
era  with  this  religious  factor  eliminated  is  as 
lamentable  as  it  is  futile.  Gibbon,  in  his  notable 
history,  took  a  wiser  course  in  acknowledging  such 
an  element,  though  seeking  %to  explain  it  away. 
Taine  is  never  more  interesting  than  when  he 
aims  to  account  for  this  recognized  element  in 
English  thought  and  letters.  So  pervasive  was 
this  biblical  influence  in  the  sixteenth  century  that 
Bishop  Wordsworth  has  not  found  it  difficult  to 
fill  a  volume  with  scriptural  references  from 
Shakespeare  only,  the  specific  question  of  Shake- 
speare's relation  to  Protestantism  being,  for  the 
time,  in  abeyance.  The  several  Bible  versions  of 
the  time,  from  the  Genevan  to  that  of  King  James, 
were,  partly,  the  occasion  and,  partly,  the  outcome 
of  the  age,  while  the  Protestant  character  of  the 
versions,  whether  Anglican  or  Presbyterian,  served 
to  deepen  and  widen  the  great  reformatory  move- 
ment. Despite  the  fact  that  the  Vulgate  version 
just  preceded  the  era  and  the  Rheims-Douay  ver- 
sion followed  it,  the  dominant  type  was  Protes- 
tant far  on  to  the  days  of  James  the  Second.  Had 
a  Romish  king  or  queen  sat  on  the  throne  in  the 


16  General  Discussions 

second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  face  of 
English  civilization  would  have  entirely  changed, 
while  the  English  language  and  literature  would 
have  been  subjected  to  the  theology  and  standards 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Golden  Age  of  English 
Letters  owes  as  much  to  the  English  Bible  as  to 
any  other  single  influence. 

Two  or  three  suggestions  of  interest  emerge  as 
we  close  our  brief  survey  of  the  Elizabethan  Age. 

1.  The  first  is,  that  golden  ages  are  applied  to 
specific  literary  eras  •  in  a  relative  sense  and  on 
well-understood  conditions.  The  phrase  is  one  of 
accommodation  only,  and  may  or  may  not  be  ap- 
plicable at  other  periods  in  the  historic  develop- 
ment of  the  literature.  In  the  nature  of  the  case, 
such  periods  cannot  be  permanent,  and,  even  be- 
fore they  give  place  to  something  different,  as- 
sume various  phases  indicative  of  change  and  give 
abundant  premonition  of  their  decadence  and  dis- 
appearance. It  was  thus  with  the  Age  of  Eliza7 
beth.  No  sooner  had  the  era  been  established  as 
superior  than  marks  of  change  and  decline  began 
to  appear.  Moreover,  such  an  age  in  the  sixteenth 
century  could  not  possibly  mean  just  what  it 
means  to  the  present  century,  for  civilization  ad- 
vances and  literary  standards  advance.  In  fine, 


Elizabethan  Age  of  English  Letters          1? 

the  Elizabethan  Age  is  but  the  first  golden  age  in 
point  of  time.     Subsequent  eras  have  surpassed  it, 

2.  The    later    influence    of    this    earlier    era    is 
noteworthy.      Critics   and    historians    have    always 
been  at  a  loss  where  to  draw  the  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  any  two  literary  periods,  the  Eliza- 
bethan Age  closing  properly  in  1603,  the  year  of 
the  death  of  Elizabeth,  or  more  accurately,  at  the 
close  of  the  reign  of  James  the  First,  in  1625.     In 
any  case,  the  influence  of  this  brilliant  era  passes 
on   from   age    to  age,    through    the   reign   of  the 
Stuarts  and  the  House  of  Hanover  to  the  days  of 
Victoria.    It   is   thus   that    Milton   has  been   called 
"  the    last   of   the    Elizabethans,"    while   the   great 
Romantic   Movement  in  the  days  of  Wordsworth 
and   Burns   and  Scott  and  Gray  was  but   another 
evidence  of  the  reappearance  of  sixteenth-century 
influences.     Shakespeare,  as  the  great  Elizabethan, 
still  dominates  the  province  of  English  drama,  and 
bids    fair    to   maintain    his    primacy   as    the   years 
go  on. 

3.  The  close  relations  of  English  literature  and 
the  English  language   appear  in  this  period  as  at 
no  other  modern  era.     The  mooted  discussion  as 
to   the   relative   claims   of   our   literature   and   our 
language  could  have  had  no  place  at  a  time  when 


18  General  Discussions 

the  best  English  authors  were  those  who  wrote 
and  spoke  the  best  English,  with  whom  the  Eng- 
lish vocabulary  was,  first  and  last,  a  collection  of 
English  words  for  literary  uses,,  and  who  had  no 
conception  of  what  is  now  meant  by  the  textual 
and  technical  study  of  a  language  quite  apart  from 
its  content  and  pervading  spirit.  Modern  English 
literature  and  Modern  English  language  began  to- 
gether at  the  Elizabethan  Era  and  with  the  ideal, 
at  least,  of  concomitant  development  down  to  our 
own  day.  It  was  one  of  the  exceptional  merits  of 
Shakespeare  as  a  dramatist  that  with  a  vocabulary 
of  but  fifteen  thousand  words  he  compassed  the 
widest  reaches  of  dramatic  art  and  set  the  model 
of  idiomatic  English  for  all  his  successors  to 
imitate  —  while  in  it  all  he  had  no  thought  the 
most  remote  of  assuming  the  attitude  of  what  is 
now  known  as  the  English  philologist.  He  had  no 
other  uses  for  the  parts  of  speech  than  that  which 
Lowell  suggests  when  he  tells  us  that  they  should 
be  made  "  vividly  conscious  "  of  the  thought  be- 
hind them.  In  this  respect,  at  least,  we  have  made 
no  improvement  upon  this  earliest  standard  which 
was  set  us  by  the  masters. 

As   our   discussion   closes,   we   are     led   to   ask, 
What  are  the  signs,  if  any,  of  a  golden  age  as  the 


Elizabethan  Age  of  English  Letters          19 

twentieth  century  opens?  Dependent,  as  it  will  be, 
on  what  Taine  has  called  the  race  and  place  and 
time  factors,  who  can  foretell  the  emergence  of 
such  an  era  as  the  natural  result  of  friendly  ante- 
cedents and  conditions?  Interwoven  as  these  epochs 
are  with  the  complex  network  of  human  history, 
when  they  come  they  often  come  unheralded  and 
in  violation  of  all  precedent  and  historic  sequence, 
bursting  in  upon  the  indifferent  life  of  the  time 
with  something  like  dramatic  effect.  It  may  be 
so  in  the  century  now  at  hand,  inasmuch  as,  when 
we  scan  the  horizon,  we  may  discover  some  mani- 
fest signs  of  its  approach,  even  though  the  signs 
be  somewhat  indistinct. 

The  Victorian  masters  who  evinced  in  their 
work  much  of  the  genius  of  Elizabethan  days  have 
gone  from  us,  but  we  can  recall  as  vividly  as  pos- 
sible who  they  were  and  what  they  did,  and  look 
with  heroic  hopefulness  for  a  succession  of  authors 
worthy  to  follow  them  and  to  maintain  the  stand- 
ards which  they  established. 


II 

ANTECEDENTS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  DRAMA 

BEFORE  the  student  is  prepared  to  discuss  the 
rapid  revival  of  the  English  Drama  in  the  early 
Elizabethan  days  and  its  perfected  expression 
in  the  works  of  Shakespeare,  it  is  necessary  for 
him  to  take  a  comprehensive  survey  of  English 
dramatic  history  from  its  crudest  beginnings  and 
forms.  In  such  a  general  review,  however,  it  is 
not  to  be  forgotten  that,  though  these  beginnings 
are  comparatively  unimportant,  they  are  still  be- 
ginnings of  that  which  is  important,  and,  as  such, 
assume,  at  the  outset,  a  high  position  of  relative 
rank.  Enthusiastic  artists  have  told  us  that  they 
have  enjoyed  the  rudest  sketches  of  Raphael's 
boyhood  and  early  manhood  with  as  keen  a  relish 
as  the  maturest  products  of  his  genius  on  exhibi- 
tion in  the  Vatican  or  at  Dresden.  No  one  can 
appreciate  the  works  of  the  world's  greatest  artists 
and  not,  at  the  same  time,  acknowledge  a  substan- 
tial indebtedness  to  such  early  models  as  Giotto 
and  Cimabue.  The  English  drama,  as  indeed  the 

20 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          21 

European  and  universal  drama,  finds  its  rational 
origin  in  the  nature  and  inherent  tastes  of  man- 
kind. It  may  be  said  to  be  the  legitimate  offspring 
of  that  imitative  faculty  with  which  God  has  seen 
fit  to  endow  the  race.  It  is  in  the  early,  contin- 
uous, and  persistent  endeavor  to  give  expression 
to  this  innate  propensity  of  the  soul  that  such  an 
art  has  its  literary  source;  the  naturalness  of  dra- 
matic representation  in  all  ages  and  among  all 
peoples  being  strictly  dependent  upon  this  recog- 
nition of  its  spontaneous  origin.  With  this  fact 
in  mind,  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  attitude  of  the 
fathers  of  the  early  church  towards  the  dramatic 
exhibitions  of  their  time  and  how  impossible  it 
was  for  them  ever  to  eradicate  that  deep-rooted 
institution  which  they,  at  length,  wisely  endeavored 
to  reform.  Theophilus,  in  the  second  century,  speaks 
of  these  "  tragical  distractions  as  unwarrantable 
entertainments."  By  the  first  General  Council  of 
Aries  (314  A.D.)  players  were  actually  excom- 
municated until  they  abandoned  their  acting.  Both 
Cyril  and  Tertullian  taught  that  for  the  baptized 
children  of  the  church  to  witness  such  scenes  was 
a  sure  evidence  of  their  apostasy.  They  pro- 
nounced the  plays  idolatrous  and  superstitious. 
History  informs  us,  however,  that  these  severe 


22  General  Discussions 

strictures  were  well  deserved  in  that  the  plays  of 
those  pagan  times  were  connected  with  the  lowest 
forms  of  national  life.  The  voice  of  earnest  re- 
buke was  for  a  time  heeded,  so  that  Augustine 
tells  us  that  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  playhouses 
were  for  a  time  improved  or  abandoned.  Hence, 
it  is  clear  that  the  dramatic  art  itself  had  not  be- 
come extinct,  but  had  become  so  corrupted  in  its 
connection  with  the  rites  of  Venus  and  Bacchus, 
as  for  a  time  to  endanger  its  very  existence.  In 
the  fourth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  stage  rep- 
resentations were  renewed,  signally  improved  as  to 
their  intrinsic  character  and  under  a  far  safer  and 
purer  control.  Old  Testament  history  took  the 
place  of  ribaldry  and  licentious  songs,  while  the 
church  fathers  themselves  became  personally  active 
as  authors  of  dramatic  works  and  patrons  of  the 
stage.  It  is  written  of  Gregory,  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, that,  chagrined  by  the  inferiority  of  the 
Greek  theater,  he  prepared  material  from  Scrip- 
ture on  the  basis  of  the  classical  dramatists,  and 
aimed  in  a  presentation  of  the  history  of  our  Lord 
to  reproduce  the  art  of  the  great  Greek  tragedians. 
The  same  order  of  public  entertainment  is  found 
in  France  in  the  reign  of  Charlemagne.  Abundant 
evidence  is  produced  by  Warton  that  Latin  plays 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          23 

were  familiar  to  the  Norman  clergy  before  and 
after  the  Conquest,  and  it  is  just  at  this  point  that 
the  dramatic  history  of  England  is  seen  to  con- 
nect itself  with  the  general  dramatic  history  of 
Continental  Europe.  As  to  the  exact  status  of  the 
tragic  and  comic  art  in  Saxon  and  Norman  days, 
little  that  is  trustworthy  is  known.  The  entire 
period  from  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century 
to  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  may  be  regarded  as 
one  in  which  the  rude  portraitures  of  medieval 
days  were  gradually  transformed,  under  various 
agencies,  into  the  highly  organized  dramas  of 
Shakespeare  and  Marlowe.  At  this  early  date,  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  I.  and  of  Stephen  of  Blois, 
are  found  the  first  plays  that  are  known  to  have 
been  composed  by  an  Englishman.  These  are  the 
three  plays  of  Hilarius,  an  English  monk,  written 
when  he  was  a  pupil  of  the  celebrated  Abelard, 
in  France.  It  is  the  testimony  of  Fitzstephen,  in 
his  "Life  of  Becket,"  that  London  "  had  enter- 
tainments of  a  more  devout  kind,  either  of  those 
miracles  which  were  wrought  by  holy  confessors 
or  those  passions  and  sufferings  in  which  the  mar- 
tyrs so  rigidly  displayed  their  fortitude."  This  is 
confirmed  by  the  later  evidence  of  Matthew  Paris, 
as  he  writes  of  the  drama  in  the  middle  of  the  thir- 


24  General  Discussions 

teenth  century.  The  interest  of  the  intelligent  Eng- 
lish student  in  this  older  history  will  be  greatly 
deepened  when  he  remembers  that,  for  three  cen- 
turies or  more  of  our  earlier  English  life,  dramatic 
writing  was  the  chief  form  of  the  literary  expres- 
sion of  the  people  and  the  main  agent  of  their 
ethical  training.  It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  special  note, 
that  "  Scriptural  dramas  composed  by  'ecclesiastics 
furnished  the  nations  of  Europe  with  the  only 
drama  they  possessed  for  hundreds  of  years."  A 
late  English  author  may  thus  safely  assert  that 
such  compositions  as  these  "  are  not  inconsiderable 
objects  in  the  philosophy  of  literary  history." 

The  best  classification  of  the  dramatic  repre- 
sentations from  the  earliest  English  times  to  the 
opening  of  the  modern  English  drama  may  be 
given  'in  the  generally  accepted  threefold  division 
of  (1)  Miracle  Plays  or  Mysteries;  (2)  Morali- 
ties; (3)  Interludes  and  Chronicle  Plays.  These 
names  are,  in  themselves,  strikingly  suggestive. 

1.  Miracle  Plays.  We  have  alluded  to  the  prev- 
alence of  this  first  order  throughout  all  the  nations 
of  Europe  and  at  a  very  primitive  period.  In  no 
other  country,  Spain  excepted,  are  these  particular 
plays  to  be  found  as  characteristic  as  in  England 
and  as  faithful  a  reflection  of  the  mental  and  social 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          25 

habits  of  the  people.  They  are  called  "  Miracles," 
from  the  supernatural  character  of  the  themes  and 
contents,  and  also  "  Mysteries/'  from  their  hidden 
meanings  and  special  aim  as  biblical  and  devo- 
tional. Not  only  were  they  written  by  the  clergy, 
but  often  presented  by  them  in  their  own  persons. 
The  monastery  or  the  chapel  was  the  playhouse, 
and  the  moral  education  of  the  public  was  the 
prominent  object  of  all  scenic  display.  This  special 
function  of  the  stage  as  an  educator  will  be  fully 
understood  when  it  is  remembered  that,  in  these 
medieval  times,  the  laity  as  a  class  were  pro- 
foundly ignorant,  and  necessarily  looked  to  the 
clergy  —  the  learned  class  —  for  their  most  ele- 
mentary enlightenment.  The  parish  conventicle 
was  thus  church,  academy,  and  theater  in  one ; 
the  parish  priest  was  preacher,  teacher,  playwright, 
and  actor ;  and  the  Christian  Scriptures,  with,  some 
admixture  of  legend  and  tradition,  were  the  com- 
mon source  of  all  instruction.  With  all  their 
crudeness  and  abuses,  however,  these  early  combi- 
nations served  a  purpose  until,  as  the  old  monas- 
teries themselves,  they  yielded,  willingly  or  per- 
force, to  the  demands,  of  a  more  enlightened  age. 
Anniversaries  and  special  occasions  of  every  sort 
in  the  civil  and  church  calendar  were  devoutly  eel- 


26  General  Discussions 

ebrated,  and  dramatic  guilds  were  established  in 
all  of  the  leading  towns  of  England.  With  many 
of  these  the  history  of  literature  has  made  us  ac- 
quainted. Any  one  who  has  been  in  the  vicinity 
of  London  in  the  suburban  towns  at  the  beautiful 
Whitsuntide  festival,  may  easily  form  the  picture 
of  such  outdoor  dramatic  exhibitions.  The  mag- 
nificent Corpus  Christi  ceremonies  revealed  the 
same  order  of  religious  entertainment.  .It  is  to 
this  that  Chaucer  refers,  in  his  natural  picture  of 
jolly  Absolon,  the  parish  clerk — 

"  Somtyme,  to  shewe  his  lightnesse  and  maistrye, 
He  pleyeth  Herodes  on  a  scaffold  hye." 

In  the  same  connection,  in  "  The  Miller's  Tale," 
he  refers  to  the  play  of  "  The  Flood  "  and  its 
comic  element,  when  he  asks : — 

"  '  Hastou  nat  herd,'  quod  Nicholas,  '  also 
The  sorwe  of  Noe  with  his  felaweshipe 
Er  that  he  inyghte  brynge  his  wyf  to  shipe? '  " 

As  historical  examples  of  such  plays,  we  note  the 
York,  the  Chester,  the  Wakefield  or  Towneley,  and 
the  Coventry'  Mysteries,  so  called  from  the  names 
of  the -towns  for  which  they  were  respectively  in- 
tended. Written  in  uncouth  verse,  they  were  thus 
adapted  to  an  uncouth  people,  and  so  imbued  with 
the  principles  of  scriptural  teaching  that  they  have 
been  fitly  styled  the  Biblia  Pauperum.  From  time 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          27 

to  time  these  companies  of  parish  clerks  journeyed 
over  the  island  and  gave  to  their  countrymen  the 
most  attractive  pageants  they  could  present.  They 
were  as  fully  organized  and  equipped  as  the  trav- 
eling bands  of  modern  times.  '  The  Creation  of 
the  World,"  "  The  Fall  of  Man,"  "  The  Story  of 
the  Flood,"  "  The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents  "- 
in  fine,  all  the  prominent  subjects  of  the  biblical 
narrative  —  were  made  to  appear  in  due  succes- 
sion, while  special  pains  were  taken  to  set  forth 
in  vivid  detail  the  passion  and  death  of  Christ. 
These  old  Mysteries  may  still  be  witnessed  in  Con- 
tinental Europe  —  in  Saxon  Switzerland,  in  the 
Tyrolean  Alps,  and  in  parts  of  Germany  where 
civilization  has  made  but  limited  advances  and  the 
children  of  nature  live  much  as  did  their  simple- 
minded  forefathers.  The  representation  of  "  The 
Passion  Play,"  as  given  in  Oberammergau,  in 
Upper  Bavaria,  is  the  most  notable  instance  of  its 
kind.  Occurring  once  a  decade,  and  as  an  offer- 
ing of  devout  thanksgiving  for  past  deliverances, 
it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that  there  is  no  such  im- 
posing assembly  in  modern  times  as  is  gathered  in 
that  secluded  province  to  witness  this  Miracle 
Play.  Presented  in  open  audience,  with  scenery 
and  stage  accompaniments  scrupulously  in  keeping 


28  .  General  Discussions 

with  the  theme  itself,  exhibited  by  actors  aware  of 
its  providential  occasion  and  sacred  import,  one 
can  little  imagine  either  the  faithfulness  with  which 
it  reproduces  the  ancient  Mysteries  or  its  singular 
effect  upon  native  and  foreign  spectators.  It  is  in 
reality  the  thirteenth  century  of  English  life  re- 
presented in  the  twentieth,  and  thus  serves,  among 
other  purposes,  social  and  religious,  the  distinc- 
tively literary  purpose  of  maintaining  the  connec- 
tion of  the  centuries  in  the  sphere  of  dramatic  art. 
2.  The  Moralities.  The  Miracle  Plays  at  length 
gave  place  in  the  developing  drama  to  what  are 
called  the  Moralities.  Warton,  in  his  "  History  of 
English  Poetry,"  thus  writes :  "As  these  pieces  fre- 
quently required  the  introduction  of  allegorical 
characters,  and  as  the  common  poetry  of  the 
times,  especially  among  the  French,  began  to  deal 
much  in  allegory,  plays  at  length  were  formed  con- 
sisting entirely  of  such  personifications."  These 
were  the  Moralities;  and  it  is  part  of  the  object 
of  Jeremy  Collier,  in  his  elaborate  discussion  of 
this  subject,  to  show  that  this  second  species  of 
stage  presentation  is  the  natural  outgrowth  of  the 
first.  The  particular  difference  is  clearly  stated 
when  we  note  that,  instead  of  scriptural  and  his- 
torical characters,  the  personages  were  abstract 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          29 

and  allegorical,  the  prince  of  evil  being  the  only 
member  of  the  original  dramatis  persona  that  re- 
tained his  position  in  'each  of  the  forms.  It  im- 
presses the  student  of  literary  history  somewhat 
strangely  that  the  old  biblical  plays  retained  their 
place  as  long  and  as  firmly  as  they  did.  The  de- 
sire for  some  change  of  plan  and  character  was 
now  apparent,  alike  on  the  ground  of  literary 
novelty  and  the  ever-new  necessities  of  social  life. 
The  peasantry  of  England  were  earnestly  asking 
for  exhibitions  suited  to  their  daily  experiences 
and  designed  to  instruct  them  in  the  knowledge  of 
human  life  and  manners.  There  was  some  indica- 
tion of  growing  intelligence  in  this  popular  re- 
quest and  it  was  soon  substantially  answered  in 
the  production  of  the  allegorical.  This  step  was 
a  highly  important  one  in  advance  of  the  ancient 
system  in  that  it  embodied  so  much  of  that  special 
dramatic  character  so  superbly  exhibited  in  later 
days.  The  prevalence  of  the  Moralities  may  date 
from  the  fifteenth  century  until  they  finally  sup- 
planted the  Mysteries.  As  might  be  supposed, 
these  representations  were  no  longer  under  the 
exclusive  control  of  the  Churchmen.  The  diffusion 
of  intelligence  among  the  laity  was  becoming  more 
and  more  general,  and  as  a  result  they  were  more 


30  General  Discussions 

and  more  enabled  to  secure  and  maintain  their 
personal  interests.  As  the  work  of  education  ad- 
vanced and  the  Reformation  drew  on,  priestly 
tyranny  abated  as  popular  opinion  prevailed,  and 
every  separate  order  of  society  well  understood  its 
legitimate  sphere  and  function.  It  was  in  strict 
coincidence  with  the  waning  power  of  an  exclusive 
Catholicism  and  the  rising  of  a  liberal  Protestant 
faith,  that  Mysteries  in  the  hands  of  a  few  gave 
way  to  Moralities  in  the  hands  of  the  many.  Flesh- 
and-blood  humanity  appeared  on  the  stage  in  the 
place  of  angels  and  the  canonized  martyrs  of  the 
church,  while  the  times  of  the  patriarchs  and  the 
marvelous  narratives  of  biblical  history  were  super- 
seded by  a  matter-of-fact  exhibition  of  English 
character  and  habit.  As  Scott  correctly  phrases 
it :  "  Nowhere  is  the  history  of  the  revolution 
which  transformed  the  England  of  Medievalism 
into  the  England  of  the  Renaissance  written  more 
legibly  than  in  these  plays,"  such  as,  "  The  Castle 
of  Perseverance "  and  "  The  Conflict  of  Con- 
science," in  their  contrasted  teachings.  Allegorical 
and  abstract  as  the  method  was,  the  natural  and 
practical  had  thrust  aside  the  supernatural  and  the 
theoretical,  and  the  devil  alone  was  common  to 
both  periods.  "  The  moral  plays,"  says  Collier, 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          ol 

"  were  enabled  to  keep  possession  of  the  stage  as 
long  as  they  did,  partly,  by  means  of  their  ap- 
proaches to  an  improved  species  of  composition, 
and,  partly,  because  under  the  form  of  allegorical 
fiction,  the  writers  touched  upon  public  events, 
popular  prejudices  and  temporary  opinions."  It 
is  on  the  ground  of  this  double  excellence  of  a 
distinct  dramatic  element  and  an  adaptation  to  vary- 
ing popular  needs  that  we  find  these  old  Morali- 
ties upon  the  English  boards  in  the  days  of  Eliz- 
abeth and  thus  observe  the  historical  connection 
fitly  sustained  between  the  earlier  and  the  later 
drama. 

3.  Interludes  and  Chronicle  Plays.  This  was 
a.  transitional  form,  partaking  of  the  features  of 
each  of  the  other  forms,  and  was  presented  as  a 
kind  of  middle  play  and  on  independent  occasions 
of  public  interest.  The  history  of  the  English 
drama  from  this  early  period  until  after  the  cor- 
onation of  Elizabeth  is  full  of  literary  and  general 
interest.  With  Henry  VIII.  and  his  scholarly 
court,  the  Interlude  was  the  favorite  form  of 
scenic  representation,  and  John  Heywood,  the  epi- 
grammatist, was  the  literary  idol  of  the  royal 
circle.  It  was  a  time  of  unwonted  agitation  in 
church  and  in  state,  in  literature  and  public  senti- 


3£  General  Discussions 

ment,  and  hence  the  various  movements  of  the 
time  were  reflected  in  the  drama  of  the  time.  The 
Interludes  assumed  at  once  a  political  cast  and 
were  also  made  both  by  Romanists  and  Protes- 
tants the  media  of  their  respective  religious  views. 
The  Miracle  Plays,  abandoned  by  the  reforming 
Edward  as  savoring  of  Romish  bigotry,  were  rein- 
stated in  original  splendor  by  papal  Mary,  and  the 
passion  of  Christ  was  again  before  the  English 
public  on  the  very  borders  of  the  modern  drama. 
Henry  VIII.  sat  with  manifest  relish  as  a  specta- 
tor of  the  caricature  of  Martin  Luther  and  the  Re- 
formers, while  Edward  VI.  hastened  to  repeal  the 
statutes  of  his  father  forbidding  Interludes  direct- 
ed against  the  Church  of  Rome.  This  anomalous 
state  of  things  was  repeated  when  the  edicts  of 
Bloody  Mary  concerning  the  drama  were  speedily 
revoked  by  order  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Bishop 
Bale,  a  writer  of  Interludes  on  behalf  of  Protes- 
tantism, hastened  from  the  court  of  the  treacher- 
ous Henry  to  await  the  induction  of  Edward,  and 
from  the  court  of  the  desperate  Mary  to  await  the 
crowning  of  the  Maiden  Queen.  Merrie  Hey- 
wood,  the  writer  of  comic  dialogues  in  favor  of 
Romanism,  prudently  withdrew  from  the  court  of 
Henry's  successor.  When  Mary  came  to  the 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          33 

throne,  the  judicious  playwright  reappeared,  to 
retire  with  similar  promptness  at  the  accession  of 
her  nobler  and  more  liberal  sister.  It  was  thus 
that  civil  and  ecclesiastical  history  repeated  itself, 
as  the  comic  dialogue  in  the  hands  of  Bale  and 
Heywood  and  less  renowned  composers  was  made 
the  medium  of  the  most  vital  discussions. in  poli- 
tics and  religion.  It  is  significant  here  to  note 
that,  in  the  Chronicle  Play,  such  as  Bale's  "  King 
John,"  the  most  pronounced  abstractions  were  con- 
verted into  real  personages,  and  the  Historical 
Plays  of  Elizabeth's  time  thus  anticipated.  With 
the  Mysteries  and  Moralities  still  in  vogue  and 
their  combination  suggestively  seen  in  the  form  of 
the  Interlude,  the  gradational  development  of  our 
dramatic  history  may  be  seen  from  its  modest  be- 
ginnings in  the  Miracles  of  Hilarius  on  to  the  far 
greater  miracles  of  Shakespearean  art. 

The  historical  sketch  already  given  of  the  Ante- 
cedents of  the  English  Drama  would  be  scarcely 
complete  apart  from  a  brief  account  of  the  first 
examples  of  the  modern  drama  for  which  all  that 
preceded  was  the  natural  preparation.  The  theory 
advocated  of  late,  that  the  Elizabethan  and  later 
drama  is  altogether  traceable  to  the  Italian  drama 
of  the  Renaissance,  and  has  no  dependent  relation 


34  General  Discussions 

to  any  preceding-  dramatic  forms  in  England,  is 
but  partially  admissible.  To  deny  such  dependence 
is  as  unnatural  as  it  is  unhistorical.  In  the  exam- 
ination of  our  first  tragedy  and  first  comedy,  we 
stand  at  the  very  opening  of  the  new  dramatic 
era  and  can  look  "  before  and  after." 

As  late  as  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
we  find  that  there  was  much  confusion  of  view  as 
to  the  tragic  and  comic  divisions  of  the  drama,  so 
that  it  was  quite  impossible  to  state  from  the  mere 
title  of  a  play  to  which  of  these  departments  it 
really  belonged.  Even  in  the  last  quarter  of  this 
same  century,  we  hear  a  writer  speaking  of  "  a 
pleasant  tragedy  "  and  of  "  a  pitiful  comedy,"  while 
in  France  and  Spain  and  throughout  the  Conti- 
nent the  distinctions  now  existing  were  quite  re- 
versed. The  most  sacred  portions  of  biblical  his- 
tory were  classed  under  the  comic  order.  The 
great  standard  poem  of  Italy's  greatest  poet  was 
styled  the  "  Divina  Commedia,"  despite  its  descrip- 
tion of  hell,  purgatory,  and  heaven.  In  fact  the 
Dantean  definition  of  comedy  is  given  us  as  that 
which  begins  in  sadness  and  ends  in  happiness,  its 
happy  ending,  as  it  was  argued,  entitling  it  to  the 
name  of  "  comedy."  Of  comedy  as  conceived  by 
the  modern  dramatist,  there  was  thus  little,  and 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          3£> 

yet  the  real  drama  was  in  existence  in  its  substan- 
tially grave  and  gay  expressions. 

Much  of  this  confusion  arises  from  that  triple 
order  of  dramatic  literature  then  existing,  to 
which  Scott  alludes  as  he  says:  "  On  the  one  hand, 
stands  a  body  of  playwrights  who  adhere  to  the 
traditions  of  the  vernacular  drama.  On  the  other 
side,  stands  an  influential  body  who  treated  these 
rude  medleys  with  disdain  and  owned  allegiance 
to  classical  masters.  Between  these  two  schools 
stands  a  third  which  united  the  characteristics  of 
both."  The  constant  attempt  on  the  part  of  this 
third  school  to  maintain  its  own  standard  and  yet 
to  adapt  some  of  the  best  features  of  the  others, 
is  a  sufficient  explanation  of  apparent  anomalies. 
The  earliest  English  tragedy,  as  we  know,  is  "  Gor- 
boduc,"  written  by  Thomas  Sackville,  Earl  of  Dor- 
set, with  the  possible  assistance  of  Thomas  Norton. 
It  was  represented  before  the  Queen  in  the  Inner 
Temple  in  1561.  Its  object  was  to  show  the  great 
dangers  which  must  arise  from  a  distribution  of 
the  supreme  power  of  the  state,  the  author  assert- 
ing at  last  the  prevalent  doctrine  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings  and  that  of  consequent  passive 
obedience.  It  is  thus  that  one  of  the  counselors 
of  the  old  king  remarks ; — 


36  General  Discussions 

"  That  no  cause  serves,  whereby  the  subject  may 
Call  to  account  the  doings  of  his  prince. 
In  act  nor  speech,  no,  not  in  secret  thought, 
The  subject  may  rebel  against  his  lord, 
Or  judge  of  him  that  sits  in  Caesar's  seat. 
Though  kings  forget  to  govern  as  they  ought, 
Yet  subjects  must  obey  as  they  are  bound." 

Such  was  the  political  creed  of  the  time,  and  it 
was  the  purpose  of  Sackville  to  exhibit  and  en- 
force it.  We  are  surprised  to  find  in  this  early 
specimen  of  dramatic  literature  so  complete  a  pic- 
ture of  the  later  Elizabethan  tragedy.  We  note 
the  regular  division  of  five  successive  acts  with 
varying  numbers  of  scenes,  the  presence  and  grad- 
ual unfolding  of  a  plot,  and  the  uniformly  recur- 
ring choruses  of  the  ancient  Greek  stage.  The 
tragedy  cannot  be  said  to  be  characterized  by  high 
dramatic  quality,  nor  could  this  be  expected.  Its 
excellence  lies  rather  in  its  strict  adherence  to 
classical  models,  in  its  happy  introduction  of  Sur- 
rey's blank  verse  into  the  dialogue,  and  in  the  com- 
parative purity  of  its  diction.  Though  the  charac- 
ters are  not  original,  they  are  well  conceived  and 
presented ;  the  question  of  civil  polity  is  well  dis- 
cussed; the  substance  of  the  language  is  vigorous, 
if  not  passionate ;  while  throughout  there  is  evi- 
dence of  an  ethical  and  a  well-balanced  mind  and 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          37 

some  degree  of  poetic  genius.  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
the  accomplished  critic  of  the  day,  wrote  of  it: 
"Gorboduc  is  full  of  stately  speeches  and  well- 
sounding  phrases,  climbing  to  the  height  of  Sen- 
eca's style  and  as  full  of  notable  morality.  Thus 
it  doth  most  delightfully  teach,  and  so  obtain  the 
very  end  of  poetry."  In  the  eyes  of  the  Elizabeth- 
an court  and  of  the  literati  of  the  time,  it  was  re- 
garded as  a  poetical  marvel,  while  even  the  crit- 
ical Alexander  Pope  became  the  agent  of  its  later 
publication,  and  earnestly  recommended  it  to  all 
succeeding  writers  for  its  "  chastity,  correctness, 
and  gravity  of  style." 

The  first  comedy  in  our  language  and  first 
extant  English  play  was  long  supposed  to  be  the 
one  known  as  "  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,"  a 
poem  of  inferior  literary  merit  and  marked  by 
moral  .grossness.  The  earliest,  as  now  known,  is 
"  Ralph  Roister  Doister,"  by  Nicholas  Udall, 
Master  of  Eton,  and  modeled  after  the  plays  of 
Plautus  and  Terence.  It  precedes  our  earliest 
tragedy  by  nearly  a  decade.  It  presents  a  graphic 
picture  of  the  London  manners  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  having  a  good  claim  to  the  title,  "  a  right 
pithy,  pleasant  and  merrie  comedie." 


38  General  Discussions 

"  As  long  does  live  the  merry  man,  they  say, 
As  doth  the  sorry  man,  and  longer  by  a  day." 

The  dramatis  persona  are  a  wealthy  widow  and 
her  wooers,  among  whom  is  the  imperturbable 
Ralph,  who  is  beguiled  into  all  sorts  of  misdeeds. 
Full  of  self-conceit  and  the  passion  of  love,  he  is 
unsuccessful  as  he  is  ardent. 

"  So  fervent  at  wooing  and  so  far  from  winning." 

The  course  of  the  comedy  thus  runs  on  in  the  per- 
sons of  Matthew  Merry  Greek  and  his  compeers ; 
full  of  life  without  being  frivolous ;  full  of  humor 
without  being  coarse ;  while,  in  general  style  and 
ease  of  versification,  it  may  be  said  to  be.  far  in 
advance  of  its  time. 

The  English  Drama  is  thus  fully  established  in 
each  of  its  cardinal  divisions  and  it  is  certainly  a 
matter  of  congratulation  that  these  earliest  ex- 
amples of  the  tragic  and  the  comic  were  as  praise- 
worthy, mentally  and  morally,  as  they  were.  Sack- 
ville,  the  learned  author  of  the  "  Induction,"  was 
depicting  the  evils  of  political  rivalry,  and  Udall, 
the  eminent  Master  of  Eton,  was  depicting  the 
features  of  the  citizen  life  of  London.  Just  as  in 
Csedmon  and  Layamon,  of  Old  and  Middle  English 
days,  the  ethical  basis  of  our  literature  was  laid, 
so  in  the  persons  and  poems  of  these  early  dra- 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          3\) 

matists,  the  moral  cast  of  all  our  later  drama  is 
permanently  set  from  which,  in  the  last  three  cen- 
turies, however,  there  has  been  more  or  less  de- 
parture. 

We  have  thus  traced,  in  brief,  the  historical 
thread  of  our  vernacular  drama  from  its  elemen- 
tary origin  to  its  perfected  form,  and  have  thereby 
opened  the  way  for  the  intelligent  prosecution  of 
the  history  in  its  later  unfoldings.  It  is  not  our 
purpose  here  to  follow  this  narrative  from  Eliza- 
beth to  Victoria.  Beginning  with  Mr.  Symond's 
treatise  on  "  Shakespeare's  Predecessors  in  the 
English  Drama,"  and  following  with  the  study  of 
Professor  Ward's  "  History  of  English  Dramatic 
Literature,"  the  English  scholar  may  readily  pos- 
sess himself  of  all  the  facts  bearing  on  the  subject. 

A  few  suggestions  are  in  place  as  to  the  inher- 
ent ground  of  the  dramatic  art  and  the  occasion 
of  its  peculiar  method.  The  origin  of  scenic  rep- 
resentation, as  already  intimated,  is  not  to  be 
traced  to  any  form  of  legislative  enactment  or  to 
the  growing  needs  of  civilization,  but  has  its  basis 
and  sufficient  reason  in  the  constitution  of  the 
race.  As  man  is  possessed  of  a  mind  that  under- 


40  General  Discussions 

stands ;  of  a  taste  that  appreciates ;  of  emotions 
that  sympathize ;  of  a  moral  bias  to  the  right ;  and, 
most  especially,  of  an  inborn  imitative  faculty  that 
duplicates  all  it  sees  and  sees  what  does  not  exist: 
so  must  visible  representation  arise,  in  one  form 
or  another,  to  meet  and  satisfy  these  various  tend- 
encies of  the  soul.  It  may  take  the  form  of 
Miracle  Play  or  Morality ;  of  Interlude  or  Drama 
Proper ;  of  Tragedy  or  Comedy ;  of  the  abstract  or 
the  concrete ;  of  prose  or  poetry ;  of  oral  speech 
or  pantomime ;  in  one  way  or  another  it  will  ex- 
hibit itself  and  be  modified  in  its  expression  by 
the  age  and  nation  in  which  it  appears.  Substan- 
tially the  same  wherever  seen,  it  is  as  flexible  as 
human  nature  itself  and  fitly  reflects  in  due  succes- 
sion the  ever-changing  manners  of  men.  It  is 
thus  that  we  find  this  species  of  literature  among 
all  European  peoples.  Perhaps  the  very  earliest 
drama  founded  on  biblical  history  is  that  of  the 
Exodus,  written  by  Ezekiel,  the  Jew,  and  this  in 
turn  was  based  upon  classic  models.  Dramatic 
art  early  appeared  in  the  old  pagan  nations,  as  in 
Greece,  where  it  gradually  developed  from  the  ex- 
hibitions of  the  traveling  Rhapsodists  until  Soph- 
ocles, Euripides,  and  yEschylus  perfected  it.  It 
had  a  place  early  in  Rome  for  the  pleasure  of 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          41 

kings  and  courts,  while  Seneca,  Plautus,  Terence, 
and  others  carried  it  to  high  degrees  of  excellence. 
In  Italy  and  all  the  romance  countries  of  Southern 
Europe,  it  has  had  a  noteworthy  history,  especially 
in  those  forms  of  pantomime  in  which  South- 
Europeans  excel.  It  began  in  Germany  in  the  bal- 
lads of  the  Minnesanger,  and  came  to  its  fullest 
expression  in  the  second  classical  period,  in  the 
dramas  of  Goethe,  Lessing,  and  Schiller.  Nor  is 
it  to  be  forgotten  that  there  is  very  much  that  is 
dramatic  existing  in  productions  which  in  them- 
selves are  not  dramas.  Such  are  "  The  Canterbury 
Tales  "  of  Chaucer  and  "  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  " 
of  Bunyan.  Much  of  the  prose  of  Swift  and  the 
poetry  of  Samuel  Butler  is  of  this  order,  while  in 
prose  fiction  throughout,  this  special  cast  is  notable. 
Moreover,  there  are  dramatic  elements  at  the  basis 
of  society  and  of  personal  character  which  have 
never  been  and  can  never  be  visibly  set  forth  upon 
the  boards.  The  tragic  and  the  comic  lie  below 
all  external  manifestation  and  are  but  partially 
embodied  in  the  most  highly  developed  character- 
ization. 

This  natural  origin  of  the  drama  therefore  being 
conceded,  the  question  of  prime  importance  is, 
how  to  give  the  dramatic  principle  the  best  out- 


42  General  Discussions 

ward  expression  in  deference  to  literary  taste  and 
ethical  law.  In  the  light  of  the  universal  demand 
for  such  a  form  of  literature  and  its  consequent 
supply,  it  is  one  of  the  clearest  teachings  of  his- 
tory that  the  stage  has  never  for  any  length  of 
time  assumed  the  highest  forms  possible  to  it 
either  on  intellectual  or  moral  lines.  We  are  well 
aware  of  the  character  of  the  early  classical  drama 
and  its  description  by  ecclesiastics  as  the  very 
agent  of  Satan  to  mislead  and  defile  the  popu- 
lar conscience.  Tertullian,  Gregory,  Cyprian,  and 
Chrysostom,  in  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era,  pronounced  it  accursed  and  deserving  of 
church  censure,  and  this  at  the  -very  time  when 
they  acknowledged  its  necessity  by  becoming  them- 
selves the  composers  of  dramas  of  a  Christian 
character.  This  higher  order,  however,  was  soon 
outruled  by  a  gradual  process  of  degeneracy,  and 
the  clergy  in  turn  became  justly  exposed  to  public 
scandal.  In  Spain,  Italy,  and  France,  as  we  learn 
from  Schlegel,  the  history  was  much  the  same ; 
and  yet  we  are  surprised  to  hear  so  rigid  a  school- 
man as  Thomas  Aquinas  declare  that  such  amuse- 
ments are  necessary  to  human  happiness,  as  he 
lends  his  influence  to  the  cultivation  of  what  he 
calls  the  histrionic  art.  Although  the  formative 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          43 

periods  of  our  drama  possessed  in  their  biblical 
character  a  more  decided  moral  tendency,  the 
British  Isles  are  no  exception  in  this  dramatic 
history.  The  very  name,  Moralities,  was  dis- 
tinctive of  ethical  content  and  aim,  and,  yet, 
through  the  Interlude  various  forms  of  looseness 
entered  to,  impair  the  integrity  of  the  drama.  This 
deterioration,  however,  was  in  turn  retarded  by 
the  work  respectively  of  Sackville  and  Udall,  as 
they  wrote  what  they  wrote  on  behalf  of  scholar- 
ship and  sound  morals.  In  the  Golden  Age  of 
our  literature,  the  scholarly  character  of  the  Eng- 
lish drama  may  be  said  to  have  been  fully  sus- 
tained, in  that  nearly  all  the  dramatists  of  note 
were  university  men,  presenting  on  the  stage  their 
own  productions.  By  this  union  of  author  and 
actor  in  one  personality,  great  mental  and  literary 
advantages  were  gained.  Thus  it  is  in  the  French 
drama,  that  while  the  tragedies  of  Corneille  and 
Racine  are  simply  referred  to  as  specimens  of 
high  classical  style,  the  comedies  of  Moliere,  the 
actor  and  author,  may  be  witnessed  still  in  the 
capital  of  France.  There  is  an  indefinable  influ- 
ence that  is  thus  expressed,  and  it  was  specially 
prominent  in  the  drama  of  Elizabeth.  Strange  to 
say,  however,  this  principle  which  wrought  such 


4:4  General  Discussions 

masterly  effects  on  the  intellectual  side  seems  to 
have  been  the  very  principle  which  corrupted  dra- 
matic morals.  By  repeated  appearance  on  the 
stage,  authors  were  exposed  to  the  subtle  tempta- 
tions of  the  stage,  and  yielding  too  often,  as  many 
of  them  did,  reproduced  in  their  subsequent  au- 
thorship the  worst  phases  of  London  life.  While 
thus  securing  increased  oratorical  and  stage  ef- 
fect, they  also  came  under  the  power  of  evils  to 
which  they  had  hitherto  been  strangers,  and,  as 
usual,  the  balance  was  in  favor  of  the  impure  and 
debasing.  Hence  the  mental  giants  and  the  moral 
imbeciles  of  that  brilliant  histrionic  age,  as  the 
public  sentiment  of  the  time  classed  the  acting 
playwrights  among  the  "  rogues  and  vagabonds  " 
of  the  country.  The  gifted  Marlowe  was  no  more 
notorious  for  his  wit  and  liberal  culture  and  high 
dramatic  art  than  for  his  blatant  infidelity  and  dis- 
reputable death.  We  are  aware  of  the  unseemly 
condition  of  things  in  the  days  of  the  Common- 
wealth and  the  Restoration,  when  ill-advised  fanat- 
icism, at  the  one  extreme,  opposed  all  forms  of 
dramatic  art,  and  unbridled  license,  at  the  other, 
opened  the  way  to  the  wildest  debauchery.  Otway 
and  Southerne,  Lee  and  Wycherly,  reduced  the 
English  stage  to  the  lowest  level,  while  the  bril- 


Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama          45 

liant  compositions  of  Shakespeare  and  Massinger 
gave  way  to  the  puerile  and  revolting  dialogues  of 
third-rate  versifiers.  For  a  time,  the  home  drama 
was  thoroughly  corrupt,  and  marked  as  well  by  a 
low  order  of  mental  power.  It  was  what  Macau- 
lay  would  ironically  term  "  the  golden  age  of  dra- 
matic profligacy  and  imbecility " ;  defeating  the 
original  purpose  of  the  drama  itself  and  pandering 
to  some  of  the  lowest  instincts  of  human  nature. 
Whether  the  reformation  of  the  modern  English 
drama  is  possible  or  not,  it  is  beyond  question 
urgently  desirable,  while  the  question  of  its  feasi- 
bility is  one  that  should  earnestly  engage  the  at- 
tention of  the  educated  and  Christian  world.  The 
failure  of  all  such  attempts  at  stage  reform  hith- 
erto, and  the  speedy  return  from  the  Shakespear- 
ean drama  to  subordinate  forms,  should  not  be 
sufficient  to  discourage  all  future  effort  in  this 
worthy  movement.  Nor  will  such  a  result  be 
brought  about  either  rapidly  or  directly,  but  by 
gradual  process  and  by  agencies  somewhat  indi- 
rect. Such  an  end  cannot  be  attained  until,  first 
of  all,  and  as  an  essential  preparative,  there  come 
radical  changes  in  the  general  moral  tone  of  Eng- 
lish and  American  society;  until  modern  English 
literature  itself  takes  on  a  purer  cast  and  addresses 


46  •     General  Discussions 

itself  more  directly  to  the  higher  sentiments  of  the 
people;  until,  in  fine,  a  distinctively  Christian  order 
of  things  asserts  itself  more  emphatically,  and 
purified  public  opinion  openly  calls  for  the  repeal 
of  patent  moral  abuses. 


Ill 

THE  TRANSITION  TO  MODERN  BRITISH  POETRY 

THE  history  of  a  nation's  literature  may  be  justly 
divided  into  periods  of  comparative  permanence 
and  periods  of  transition.  As  far  as  the  history 
of  English  Literature  is  concerned,  the  first  series 
of  periods  may  be  said  to  include  the  eras  of 
Chaucer,  Spenser,  Pope,  Burns,  and  Tennyson. 

They  are,  in  every  true  sense,  established.  As 
to  their  historical  limits,  the  authors  who  adorn 
them,  the  forms  of  poetry  which  they  respectively 
exhibit,  and  the  causes  of  their  permanence,  they 
may  be  studied  as  periods  complete  in  themselves. 
Whatever  their  relation  to  that  which  precedes 
and  follows,  they  are  so  fixed  in  character  and 
outline  as  to  admit  of  careful  investigation  on  the 
part  of  the  literary  student  and  yield  invaluable 
results  for  scholarly  reference.  They  have,  there- 
fore, been  made  the  subject  of  critical  study  on 
the  part  of  all  who  have  taken  in  hand  the  expla- 
nation of  our  literary  history,  and  may  be  said  to 
be  substantially  understood.  Not  so,  however,  with 

47 


48  General  Discussions 

the  periods  of  transition,  which  in  many  of  their 
aspects  are  as  full  of  interest  and  valuable  sugges- 
tion as  the  more  permanent  ones.  Why  they  are 
so  numerous  and,  often,  so  protracted;  why  they 
so  often  occur  simultaneously  in  different  nations ; 
why  they  are  now  from  the  worse  to  the  better 
and  now  the  reverse;  why  with  all  their  want  of 
regularity  they  seem  to  proceed  somewhat  by  his- 
torical and  logical  methods ;  and  why,  though  gen- 
erally explainable,  some  of  them  defy  all  attempts 
at  solution  —  such  are  some  of  the  many  questions 
that  arise  as  we  study  them.  While  from  the  very 
fact  that  they  are  transitional,  they  have  been 
neglected,  it  is  also  because  of  this  very  fact  that 
they  have  a  peculiar  attraction  and  import.  Tran- 
sitional as  they  are,  they  have  a  character,  con- 
tent, and  history  of  their  own,  whose  careful  study 
will  amply  repay  us.  So  important,  moreover,  are 
they  in  their  historical  and  philosophical  connec- 
tions with  the  eras  before  and  after  them,  that  they 
often  hold  in  possession  the  only  key  which  will 
open  the  full  explanation  of  these  eras.  This  is 
signally  true  in  our  own  literature,  and  just  here 
lies  at  present  one  of  the  most  attractive  lines  of 
study  for  the  English  scholar.  The  judicious  and 
critical  Hallam,  in  referring  to  the  general  history 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry        49 

of  the  European  mind,  is  speaking  of  these  very 
transitions  in  literature  when  he  says :  "  There  is, 
in  fact,  no  security,  as  far  as  the  past  history  of 
mankind  assures  us,  that  any  nation  will  be  uni- 
formly progressive  in  science,  arts,  and  letters." 
These  transitions  are  as  natural  as  life  itself,  and 
must  be  taken  into  account  by  all  who  hope  to 
give  a  true  interpretation  of  the  human  mind  as 
expressed  in  literature.  They  serve  to  illustrate 
what  Mr.  Disraeli  has  called  "  Crises  and  Reac- 
tions " ;  and  did  they  not  occur,  would  seem  to 
point  to  something  abnormal  in  the  growth  ot 
letters. 

As  to  English  Literature,  and  with  special  ref- 
erence to  our  present  purpose,  these  transitional 
epochs  down  to  modern  times  may  be  thus  stated : 
Chaucer  to  Spenser  and  Milton ;  Milton  to  Pope ; 
Pope  to  Burns. 

The  first  extends  over  two  centuries,  from  the 
reign  of  Edward  II.  to  that  of  Elizabeth  and 
James  I.,  and  was  a  transition  from  the  highest 
form  of  descriptive  verse,  as  given  in  "  The  Can- 
terbury Tales,"  to  the  highest  form  of  creative 
verse,  as  given  in  the  dramas  and  epics  of  Shake- 
speare and  Milton. 

The  second  extends  through  the  larger  part  of 


50  General  Discussions 

the  seventeenth  century,  from  the  reign  of  Charles 
I.  to  that  of  William  and  Mary,  and  was  a  tran- 
sition from  the  creative  to  the  critical,  as  seen  in 
the  writings  of  Dryden  and  Pope. 

The  third  extends  from  the  reign  of  Anne  far 
into  the  reign  of  George  III.,  and  was  a  transition 
from  the  critical  to  the  impassioned,  as  seen  in  the 
poetry  of  Cowper,  Thomson,  and  Burns. 

It  is  to  this  last  transition,  from  Pope  to  Burns, 
or  from  the  earlier  to  the  more  modern  age  of 
British  verse  that  we  propose  to  give  special  at- 
tention, noticing  in  order  its  character,  its  histori- 
cal causes,  and  some  suggestions  of  interest  to 
which  the  discussion  gives  rise. 

THE    CHARACTER    OF    THE    TRANSITION 

This  may  be  briefly  expressed  in  the  fact  that 
it  was  a  change  from  form  to  feeling,  from  the 
artificial  to  the  natural.  Professor  Conington,  in 
his  scholarly  essay  upon  the  Poetry  of  Pope,  re- 
marks :  "  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  the  ad- 
vice which  was  given  by  Walsh  to  Pope  —  'to  be 
correct  in  his  writing ' — was  precisely  the  advice 
which  Horace  gave  to  his  countrymen."  The 
thought  is,  that  the  Horatian  idea  of  poetry  was 
different  from  that  which  had  preceded  it  in  laying 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         51 

more  decided  emphasis  upon  the  external  form  of 
literature.  The  Roman  satirist  cautions  his  coun- 
trymen against  what  might  be  called  a  wild  pro- 
fusion of  ideas  at  the  expense  of  literary  finish, 
and  holds  it  to  be  the  mark  of  a  genuine  poet  to 
express  himself  with  elegance.  He  rebukes  the 
pride  of  Lucilius  in  boasting  that  he  had  produced 
two  hundred  verses  in  an  hour.  In  this  particular, 
the  analogy  between  the  Age  of  Horace  in  Latin 
letters,  and  that  of  Pope  in  English,  is  somewhat 
suggestive ;  while  the  title  —  Augustan  —  applied 
to  the  latter,  is  thus  far  appropriate  in  that  special 
reference  is  made  to  the  outer -structure  of  verse. 
It  was  the  Age  of  the  English  Academy,  as  that 
of  Richelieu  was  of  the  French.  For  this  correc- 
tive work  Dryden  prepared  the  way.  To  it  Pope 
was  born  and  bred.  Never  were  the  historical 
tendencies  of  an  age  and  the  natural  tendencies  of 
a  poet  more  accordant.  Pope  knew  his  one  best 
talent,  and  interpreted  aright  the  meaning  of  the 
time,  so  that  he  was  the  one  undisputed  master, 
in  his  day,  of  poetic  form.  "  We  had  some  great 
poets," '  said  Walsh  to  Pope,  "  but  we  never  had 
one  great  poet  that  was  correct."  The  critical  ver- 
sifier at  once  accepted  the  suggestion,  and  devoted 
himself  to  verse  as  an  art  —  to  the  study  and 


5%  General  Discussions 

practice  of  versification.  He  showed  the  timeli- 
ness of  his  newly  accepted  mission  by  noting  the 
absence  of  this  element  in  former  poets. 

"  For  Otway  failed  to  polis'h  or  refine, 
And  fluent  Shakespeare  scarce  effaced  a  line ; 
E'en  copious  Dryden  wanted  or  forgot 
That  last  and  greatest  art  —  the  art  to  blot." 

Pope  insisted  that  in  every  literature  there  is  the 
need  of  a  critical  era.  If  such  an  era  cannot  coexist 
with  'the  creative,  and  authors  of  high  inventive 
power  cannot  sit  in  judgment  upon  their  own  writ- 
ings, then,  as  he  argued,  other  minds  must  appear, 
less  gifted  in  genius,  but  more  gifted  in  critical 
judgment,  and  do  the  work  of  literary  censors.  He 
held  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  genius  in 
poetic  art,  and  could  not  indorse  the  remark  so 
often  made  by  literary  historians,  that  a  critical 
age  is  a  necessary  prelude  to  the  decay  of  litera- 
ture. If  the  critical  era  be  subordinate  to  the 
original  era  of  which  it  is  the  judge,  if  the  criti- 
cism itself  gathers  its  principles  from  nature  and 
aims  at  the  highest  ends,  then,  he  argued,  the  re- 
sults could  not  but  be  beneficent.  Such  formal 
ages  as  these,  he  added,  would  seen  to  have  their 
place  in  literature  as  restraints  upon  the  excesses 
of  more  imaginative  periods.  A  purely  original 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         53 

age  altogether  devoid  of  the  restraints  of  art  may 
be  said  to  have  within  it,  according  to  Pope,  some 
of  the  elements  of  its  own  destruction.  Though 
in  themselves  they  are  epochs  of  inferiority,  they 
still  have  a  function  to  perform  in  the  general  de- 
velopment of  letters. 

Critical  periods,  however,  we  submit,  as  all 
others,  come  to  the  limit  of  their  usefulness  in  due 
time,  and  must  give  place  to  better  things.  If 
Pope  was  doing  a  safe  and  necessary  work  in  lit- 
erature, scores  of  second-  and  third-rate  imitators 
were  bringing  the  very  name  of  criticism  into  dis- 
repute, and  awakening  the  just  indignation  of  all 
true  minds.  Diction  was  magnified  above  thought, 
and  method  took  the  place  of  inspiration.  Much 
of  the  poetry  lost  its  distinctive  character  as  such, 
and  descended  to  an  inferior  quality  of  prose. 
Verses  were  trimmed  and  fashioned  to  order  in 
accordance  with  the  latest  dicta  of  the  schools. 
There  was  .a  drama  extensive  enough  to  absorb  the 
attention  of  pleasure-seekers,  and  yet  nothing  to 
remind  one  of  Marlowe  or  of  Jonson.  There  was 
an  abundance  of  descriptive  poetry,  but  nothing 
above  the  commonplace.  All  was  correct  enough, 
—  too  correct.  Dryden  well  expresses  the  vice  of 
the  time,  as  he  calls  it  the  age — 


54  General  Discussions 

"  When  critics  weigh 

Each  line  and  every  word  throughout  a  play, 
Our  age  was  cultivated,  thus,  at  length. 
But  what  we  gained  in  skill  we  lost- in  strength, 
Our  builders  were  with  want  of  genius  cursed, 
The  second  temple  was  not  like  the  first. 
Poets,  like  lovers,  should  be  bold  and  dare, 
They  spoil  their  business  with  an  over-care. 
And  he  who  servilely  creeps  after  sense 
Is  safe,  but  ne'er  will  reach  to  excellence. 
Time,  place,  and  action  may  with  pains  be  taught, 
But  genius  must  be  born,  and  never  can  be  taught." 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  such  a  literature 
could  not  be  permanent.  If  passion  were  at  all 
evinced  it  was  on  the  basis  of  some  prescribed 
formula,  so  that  the  heart  of  the  passion  was 
taken  out  of  it.  In  fact,  the  Augustan  Age  was 
not  an  age  for  poetry  in  its  best  form,  but  for 
political  and  periodical  prose,  so  that  when  po- 
etry was  attempted  it  was  didactic  rather  than 
lyric,  and  vigor  departed  as  correctness  entered. 
Hence,  the  few  ambitious  poets  of  the  time  were 
in  eager  search  for  poetic  freedom.  They  felt 
that  the  strictly  critical  period,  even  at  its  best,  had 
done  its  appointed  work,  and  that  the  call  for  a 
different  order  of  things  could  not  pass  unheeded. 
Light  descriptive  sketching  must  take  the  place  of 
studied  monotony  in  verse,  as  expressed  in  satire. 
There  must  be  the  yielding  of  precedent  to  prog- 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         55 

ress,  and  the  language  of  the  heart  must  assert  its 
supremacy.  On  all  sides  there  must  be  flexibility, 
new  and  wide  departures  from  traditional  re- 
straints, a  standard  of  poetic  excellence  sufficiently 
adaptive  to  give  the  fullest  scope  to  the  personality 
of  the  poet.  The  main  error  by  which  this  tran- 
sition was  occasioned,  and  against  which  it  pro- 
tested, was  the  imperious  demand  that  the  poet 
should  surrender  his  individuality  to  the  rules  of 
this  or  that  poetic  teacher,  and  be  anybody  but 
himself. 

The  heart,  after  all,  is  the  central  power  in 
human  history,  in  life  and  in  literature,  and  though 
for  a  time  suppressed  in  its  action,  is  sure  at 
length  to  assert  itself,  and  even  more  vigorously 
than  before.  It  is  of  this  reaction  to  poetic  free- 
dom and  feeling  that  Taine  speaks :  "At  length 
poetry  has  again  become  life-like ;  we  no  longer  lis- 
ten to  words,  but  we  feel  emotions.  It  is  no  longer 
an  author  but  a  man  who  speaks."  They  could 
not,  and  would  not,  longer  side  with  those  who 
steadily  set  themselves  against  the  natural  expres- 
sion of  emotion  in  verse.  They  sighed  for  the 
childlike  simplicity  of  Chaucer's  time,  and  could 
not  but  remember  with  regret  the  uncurbed  liberty 
of  Elizabethan  days.  Even  in  the  interval  between 


•"56  General  Discussions 

Milton  and  Dryden,  a  true  literary  freedom  was 
more  or  less  enjoyed,  and  as  the  bounds  of  human 
progress  were  widening  in  all  directions,  and  the 
human  mind  was  freer  than  ever,  they  felt  that 
the  poetry  of  the  immediate  future  must  be  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  time  and  become  a  true  exponent 
of  its  innermost  character  and  life. 

THE    HISTORICAL   CAUSES    OF   THE   TRANSITION 

Among  these  causes,  as  more  specific,  we  notice 
briefly : — 

1.  The  influence  of  Germany  upon  England. 
With  the  first  classical  period  in  German  Litera- 
ture (1190-1300)  — the  period  of  the  Minnesanger 
-  we  have  little,  if  anything,  to  do,  inasmuch 
as  it  occurred  previous  to  the  settlement  of  our 
literature  as  national.  The  second  classical  period 
(1760-1830)  is  almost  identical  in  its  limits  with 
the  Impassioned  Era  in  England.  Hence,  its  in- 
fluence would  be  marked  as  to  degree  and  charac- 
ter. Here  we  find  the  six  most  illustrious  names 
of  German  poetry  —  Klopstock,  Lessing,  Wieland, 
Herder,  Schiller,  and  Goethe.  Their  most  notable 
followers  also  are  found  here  —  Lavater,  Nicolai, 
Miiller,  Richter,  Uhland,  Tieck,  Novalis,  and  the 
brothers  Schlegel.  Such  an  order  of  poetical  tal- 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         5* 

ent  as  this  would  create  its  own  fitting  opportuni- 
ties, and  taking  into  account  the  historic  relations 
of  the  two  nations,  nothing  is  more  natural"  than 
the  results  that  we  see.  English  authors,  fully 
aware  of  the  literary  treasures  across  the  channel, 
eagerly  resorted  thither  to  bring  them  to  Britain. 
Thus  we  find  Coleridge,  in  1798,,  a  member  »of  the 
University  at  Gottingen.  Returning  to  England, 
the  influence  of  German  study  is  sufficiently  at- 
tested by  his  translation  of  Schiller's  "  Wallen- 
stein,"  and  by  his  calling  the  special  attention  of 
British  scholars  to  the  prevailing  philosophy  of 
Germany.  We  find  Sir  Walter  Scott  also  thor- 
oughly aroused  by  the  newly  awakened  interest  in 
German  literature  prevalent  in  Edinburgh.  Be- 
coming versed  in  the  language,  he  applied  himself 
at  once  to  the  work  of  translation  in  the  "  Lenore  " 
of  Burger ;  the  "  Erl  Konig  "  and  "  Gotz  von  Ber- 
lichingen  "  of  Goethe.  Among  the  works  of  Shel- 
ley, we  note  translations  from  "  Faust,"  while  upon 
Southey  and  Wordsworth  the  same  influence  is  evi- 
dent. This  being  so,  the  question  of  special  interest 
is,  How  did  this  become  a  help  to  English  poetry 
in  the  sphere  of  passion?  The  answer  is  partly 
found  in  the  fact  that  English  thought  in  all  de- 
partments was  quickened  by  contact  with  Germany. 


58  General  Discussions 

The  German  mind,  even  in  its  criticisms  and  spec- 
ulations, is  creative  and  original  rather  than  imi- 
tative, calling  into  play  at  every  point  all  the  dis- 
cerning and  suggestive  powers  of  the  soul.  The 
influence  was  thus  stimulating,  calling  the  poets 
of  the  time  away  from  slavish  adherence  to  any 
school  'or  literary  formula,  and  bidding  them  seek 
a  wider  and  freer  range.  The  effect  was  all  in 
the  direction  of  feeling  rather  than  form.  This 
love  of  the  emotional  is  clearly  seen  in  the  conflict 
waged  between  the  schools  of  Gottsched  and  Bod- 
mer  in  Germany,  with  their  centers  respectively 
at  Leipsic  and  Zurich.  The  one  contended  for  the 
poetry  of  form,  the  other  for  that  of  spirit  and 
power.  The  one  was  the  school  of  imitation  and 
of  culture,  based  on  Gallic  models ;  the  other,  the 
school  of  passion  and  imagination,  based  on  nat- 
ural feeling.  It  was  the  old  historic  struggle  of 
the  letter  and  the  spirit ;  and  the  fact  of  interest  is, 
that  as  in  England  so  in  Germany,  the  literature 
of  the  spirit  prevailed.  The  lyric  beauty  of  the 
early  Minnelieder  reappears  in  Schiller,  gives  an 
impassioned  character  to  the  poetry  ever  after,  and 
impresses  itself  upon  the  poetry  of  England.  The 
formal  laws  of  the  schools  had  given  place  to  na- 
ture and  human  life,  and  the  literature  of  Britain 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         59 

was  just  ready  to  receive  what  Germany  was  ready 
to  give  —  a  poetry  of  the  heart. 

2.  A  second  and  more  potent  cause  of  the  new 
awakening  is  found,  as  we  think,  in  the  revolution- 
ary character  of  the  times.  The  erratic  Rousseau 
did  not  have  reference  to  his  own  country  simply 
when  he  wrote,  "  We  are  drawing  near  to  a  state 
of  crisis  —  an  age  of  revolution."  Such  a  period 
was  far  too  practical  in  its  working  and  far  too 
evident  in  its  origin  to  be  concealed.  All  Europe 
was  more  or  less  interested  in  the  issues.  As  far 
back  as  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire  its  his- 
tory is  traceable.  At  the  opening  of  European  civ- 
ilization after  the  Middle  Ages,  its  presence  is  ap- 
parent, while  all  along  the  line  of  English  develop- 
ment it  is  also  visible.  In  the  struggle  between 
Saxon  and  Norman ;  between  the  Barons  and  the 
King  at  Runnymede ;  in  the  times  of  Elizabeth  and 
of  Charles  we  see  it,  until,  in  the  Revolution  of 
1688,  royal  prerogative  yields  to  popular  privilege, 
and  English  liberties  are,,  for  the  first  time,  perma- 
nently adjusted.  The  benefits,  however,  thus  se- 
cured were  too  pronounced  to  be  enjoyed  with 
moderation  by  England.  She  soon  begins  the 
abuse  of  her  freedom,  and  once  more,  at  least,  a 
revolution  is  needed  to  impress  upon  the  British 


60  General  Discussions 

mind  the  true  relation  of  government  and  people. 
The  question  of  moment,  therefore,  is,  How  was 
the  poetry  of  the  time,  as  impassioned,  affected  by 
the  history  of  the  time  ?  That  English  poetry  was 
greatly  modified  by  such  a  history  cannot  be 
doubted.  We  find  Wordsworth  a  traveler  in 
France  at  the  very  time  of  the  Revolution,  coming 
fully  into  sympathy  with  the  popular  movement 
and  evincing  in  all  his  subsequent  writing  the  ef- 
fect of  the  contact.  Coleridge  is  at  Bristol  lectur- 
ing on  politics.  Southey,  radical  and  conservative 
in  turn,  wrote  and  spoke  on  the  questions  of  the 
hour.  In  noting  the  more  particular  features  of 
this  influence  in  the  line  of  the  emotive  we  re- 
mark : — 

(a)  That  the  issues  now  at  stake  were  urgent 
and  practical.  We  read  in  the  biography  of  Words- 
worth the  interesting  fact  that  while  sojourning  in 
France  in  revolutionary  days,  the  special  motive  of 
his  change  from  English  conservatism  to  repub- 
licanism was,  that  he  seemed  to  discern  in  this 
French  national  movement  the  ardent  desire,  of  the 
people  for  political  liberty.  There  was  a  some- 
thing here  that  appealed  to  all  the  sympathies  of 
the  poet's  nature.  Forgetting,  for  the  moment, 
the  wild  excesses  to  which  the  nation  was  advanc- 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         61 

ing,  he  is  glad  to  lend  his  personal  indorsement. 
In  this  cry  for  freedom,  and  struggle  toward  it, 
there  was  a  deep  and  genuine  emotive  element, 
and  its  effect  upon  poetry  was  most  significant. 
The  voice  of  the  people  must  ever  be  heard  above 
the  counsels  of  kings  and  cabinets.  The  authors 
of  the  age  apprehend,  at  once,  the  meaning  of  the 
hour,  and  English  poetry  is  henceforth  to  be  of 
and  to  the  people. 

(b)  By  far  the  most  important  benefit  accruing 
to  the  reviving  literature  from  the  political  agita- 
tions of  the  time  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  it  was  a 
time  of  change.  The  spirit  of  inquiry  was 
awakened  in  all  the  departments  of  human  thought. 
In  Natural  Science  the  work  of  the  Royal  Society 
was  being  zealously  done.  In  Theology,  there 
were  special  discussions  by  Clarke,  Butler,  and 
Warburton.  In  Adam  Smith's  "  Wealth  of  Na- 
tions," Social  Science  may  be  said  to  have  taken 
its  origin,  while  it  was  closely  followed  by  the 
"  Fragments  "  of  Bentham,  and  later  by  the  works 
of  Malthus  and  Ricardo.  In  Jurisprudence,  Black- 
stone  was  preparing  his  great  commentary  on  the 
Laws  of  England ;  Burke  and  Blair,  Alison  and 
Jeffrey,  were  discussing  the  principles  of  ^Esthetic 
Art,  while  Hume  and  Robertson  and  Gibbon  were 


62  General  Discussions 

writing  Civil  History.  It  was,  however,  in  the 
domain  of  Mental  and  Moral  Philosophy  that  this 
spirit  of  inquiry  was  specially  manifest.  Hume 
wrote  his  "  Inquiry  concerning  the  Human  Under- 
standing." A  few  years  later,  Reid  followed  with 
his  "  Inquiry  into  the  Human  Mind,"  while  he  is 
ably  supplemented  by  Stewart  and  the  Scottish 
school.  From  France,  Locke's  philosophy  is  re- 
turned with  foreign  perversions,  to  which  are 
added  the  dangerous  theories  of  Bolingbroke  and 
Rousseau.  Early  in  the  century,  Berkeley  had 
given  to  the  world  his  Ideal  Philosophy.  Toward 
the  middle  of  the  century  Hartley  appeared  with 
his  Philosophy  of  Association,  while  near  its  close 
we  see  the  skeptical  philosophy  of  Gibbon,  the 
rationalism  of  Paine,  and  the  gross  materialism  of 
Priestley.  In  the  line  of  foreign  philosophy  as 
bearing  upon  British  thought,  there  are  two  sets 
of  influences.  The  one  was  started  and  maintained 
by  the  critical  discussions  of  Kant,  and  the  other, 
by  the  encyclopaedists  of  France,  who  began  in 
doubt  and  ended  in  the  bold  denial  of  all  moral 
truth.  Catching  its  spirit  from  the  teachings  of 
Voltaire,  it  desired  to  construct  a  system  fully  in 
keeping  with  the  reorganizing  spirit  of  the  time. 
It  was  successful  in  this,  in  so  far  as  its  promi- 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         60 

nent  idea  was  the  discovery  and  diffusion  of  knowl- 
edge. Such,  in  brief,  was  the  age  —  an  age  of 
bold  and  rapid  experiment,  an  age  of  revolution 
and  excitement.  The  poets  were  seeking  what  all 
others  were  seeking  —  a  breaking  down  oi  the  old 
landmarks,  and  an  establishment  of  new  standards. 
The  change  in  literature,  and  more  especially  in 
poetry,  was  as  great  as  in  any  other  sphere  —  the 
change  from  criticism  to  passion. 

(3)  We  may  mention,  as  a  third  and  suggestive 
cause  of 'this  transition,  the  revival  of  Early  Eng- 
lish poetry.  Such  an  attempt  to  reingraft  the 
older  poetry  into  the  body  of  the  later  was'  not 
confined  to  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, although  it  was  now,  for  the  first  time,  fully 
successful.  Chaucer  looks  back  of  English  litera- 
ture as  national  to  the  days  of  Layamon.  Spenser 
glories  in  drinking  deeply  from  the  well  of  Chau- 
cer. In  Milton's  "  L' Allegro  "  and  "  Comus  "  the 
influence  of  the  olden  time  is  most  manifest,  and 
he  goes  so  far  as  to  write  a  history  of  Saxon  Eng- 
land. John  Dryden,  critical  and  classical  as  he 
was,  is  never  weary  of  commending  to  his  readers 
the  pages  of  the  earlier  authors,  while  to  many 
of  our  minor  poets  it  was  nothing  less  than  their 
poetical  education  to  study  these  primitive  bards. 


64  General  Discussions 

In  1765,  Percy's  "  Reliques  of  Ancient  English 
Poetry  "  was  published.  A  few  years  later,  Thom- 
as Warton  issued  a  "  History  of  English  Poetry," 
which,  as  it  ends  before  the  close  of  Spenser's 
time,  may  justly  be  called  a  History  of  Early 
English  Poetry.  Later  still,  Ritson  produced  his 
"Ancient  Popular  Poetry,"  while  various  authors 
of  lesser  note  were  busily  at  work  in  the  same 
direction.  The  celebrated  forgeries  by  Chatterton 
and  Macpherson  were  partially  induced  by  a  grow- 
ing interest  in  the  older  poetry.  These  over- 
ambitious  writers  felt  that  if  they  were  to  be  in 
sympathy  with  the  age  and  secure  a  general  pat- 
ronage, the  old  must  be  revived.  *This  explains, 
in  part,  why  such  a  gifted  intellect  as  that  of  Chat- 
terton should  be  under  the  necessity  of  borrowing 
the  name  of  Rowley,  or  Macpherson  that  of  Os- 
sian.  Readers  were  waiting  to  be  carried  back  to 
the  days  of  Celtic  and  Scottish  song.  The  Athe- 
nian cry  for  something  new  gave  way  to  the  Brit- 
ish cry  for  the  old,  and  the  merry  minstrels  of  yore 
once  again  went  about  with  harp  and  song.  The 
people  listened  to  the  romantic  story  of  Sir  Cati- 
line and  Christabelle,  and  to  the  daring  exploits 
of  Robin  Hood  against  the  exactions  of  the  Nor- 
man Lords.  Those  quaint  old  tales  are  revived  on 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         65 

the  basis  'of  which  Shakespeare  has  constructed 
some  of  his  works.  The  "  Gentle  Herdsman  "  is 
reproduced  in  the  "  Hermit "  of  Goldsmith,  while 
we  hear  such  familiar  snatches  as,  "  The  Nut- 
brown  Maid,"  "  The  Wandering  Jew,"  "  St. 
George  and  the  Dragon,"  and  "  Fair  Rosamond." 
Most  especially,  the  old  religious  or  reformation 
ballads  in  the  life  and  passion  and  death  of  Christ 
were  reproduced,  and  the  people  hailed  their  re- 
appearing. We  can  but  slightly  appreciate  in  these 
times  the  charm  connected  with  these  earlier 
poems.  Even  the  statesmen  of  the  day  were  af- 
fected by  the  enthusiasm.  Referring  especially  to 
the  work  of  Percy,  Wordsworth  writes :  "  I  do  not 
think  there  is  an  able  writer  in  verse  of  the  pres- 
ent day  who  would  not  be  proud  to  acknowledge 
his  obligations  to  '  The  Reliques.' '  Of  the  same 
volume  Scott  confesses  that  it  awoke  within  him 
an  insatiable  passion  for  the  old,  and  at  no  period 
in  our  history  have  the  poets  and  the  people  of 
all  classes  been  so  essentially  one  in  their  literary 
likes  and  dislikes.  T.he  era  was  in  every  respect 
a  true  Renaissance  in  English  Letters,  as  much  so 
as  that  of  the  fifteenth  century  in  general  knowl- 
edge. It  was  the  Golden  Age  of  impassioned 
verse,  so  fully  in  accord  with  the  temper  of  the 


66  General  Discussions 

time  that  we  might  gather  from  a  perusal  of  the 
poetry  the  substantial  history  of  the  era.  The 
movers  in  the  great  revival  felt  as  if  they  had  been 
ignorant  of  the  lyric  resources  of  English,  and 
that  the  time  had  come  modestly  and,  yet,  de- 
cisively to  assert  the  independence  of  British  Let- 
ters and  the  vital  connection  —  historic  and  moral 
—  of  the  earliest  and  the  latest  ages  of  our  litera- 
ture. It  is  to  the  genuine  poetic  passion  of  this 
school  of  poets  that  Mr.  Whipple  refers  in  his  able 
review  of  American  Letters  in  the  last  century,  as 
he  says :  "  Most  of  these  eminent  men  were  not 
only  writers  but  powers;  they  communicated  spir- 
itual life  to  the  soul,  touching  the  profoundest 
sources  of  reason  and  emotion." 

With  them  poetic  feeling  was,  to  the  last  degree, 
natural  and  not  feigned;  it  was  simple,  deep,  and 
fervent.  Because  it  was  in  them  as  a  part  of  their 
very  life,  it  must  be  uttered  to  the  people.  Out  of 
the  fullness  of  their  hearts  they  sang  as  they  sang, 
and  no  literature  of  ancient  or  modern  times  can 
exhibit  a  more  vigorous  expression  of  true  poetic 
passion  than  that  which  we  see  in  English  Letters 
from  the  days  of  Burns  on  to  the  opening  of  the 
more  recent  school  of  metrical  and  verbal  finish. 
Robert  Burns  was  himself  the  central  figure  of  the 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         67 

Romantic  Era,  and  marked  in  his  verse  the  high- 
est point  which  genuine  poetic  inspiration  can 
reach.  He  wrote  no  epic,  and,  perchance,  could 
have  written  none.  He  had  not  the  "  vision  and 
faculty  divine  "  in  the  same  sense  in  which  Milton 
had  it,  but  still  he  had  it.  He  was  a  genius  in  lyric 
song  as  Milton  was  in  epic,  and  in  so  far  as  nat- 
ural poetic  instinct  and  genuine  poetic  emotion 
are  concerned,  has  no  peer  in  English  verse.  He 
could  not  but  be  natural. 

SUGGESTIONS 

1.  We  note  the  importance  of  the  impassioned 
element  in  poetry.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  lyric 
element  is  as  essential  to  the  inner  character  of 
poetry  as  meter  is  essential  to  its  form.  Even  in 
the  highest  examples  of  creative  verse,  so  neces- 
sary is  the  presence  of  this  element  that  it  makes 
the  dividing  line  between  the  two  orders  of  verse 
an  extremely  delicate  one,  and,  at  times,  well-nigh 
invisible.  In  fine,  if  we  reduce  terms  to  their  last 
analysis  ahd  mean  precisely  what  we  say,  we  must 
regard  poetry  as  essentially  impassioned.  The 
differentia  of  verse  as  to  its  quality  is,  that  it  is 
emotional.  Hence,  it  is  not  strange  that  so  many 
critics  have  defined  poetry  in  terms  of  the  impas- 


68  General  Discussions 

sioned  element.  Byron  speaks  of  it  as  the  "  feel- 
ing "  of  past  and  future  worlds.  Milton  terms  it 
"  sensuous  and  passionate."  Aristotle  calls  it  an 
imitative  art,  imitative  of  the  manners  and  "  pas- 
sions "  of  men ;  while  John  Stuart  Mill,  viewing 
it  as  the  influence  of  feeling  over  thought,  holds 
that  feeling  is  the  prime  element  in  all  poetry.  In 
the  light  of  such  criticism  it  is  naturally  an  open 
question  with  some  as  to  the  comparative  impor- 
tance of  the  epic  and  the  lyric.  It  is  urged  by  them 
that  the  precedence  of  the  creative  has  been  ac- 
cepted rather  than  proved ;  that  as  the  lyric  is  the 
oldest,  simplest,  and  most  frequent  form  of  poetic 
expression,  so  it  is  the  most  characteristic  and,  in 
that  sense,  the  highest  form ;  that  Milton's  "  L' Al- 
legro "  answers  more  fully  to  the  true  ideal  of  po- 
etry than  either  of  his  epics.  If  it  be  objected  to 
such  a  view  that  the  door  is  thus  opened  for  the  in- 
dulgence of  vapid  sentiment  and  the  subjection  of 
intellect  to  impulse,  it  is  answered  that  if  the 
emotion  be  simple,  genuine,  and  profound,  there 
can  be  no  danger  in  the  line  of  the  purely  sensa- 
tional. It  is  not  our  purpose  to  indorse  this  ex- 
treme view  as  to  the  rank  of  lyric  verse.  As  long 
as  the  intellectual  is  superior  to  the  emotional,  any 
form  Of  discourse  in  which  it  is  prominent  must, 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         G(J 

for  that  reason,  claim  superiority.  It  is  especially 
important  to  maintain  this  position  in  the  present 
age  when  the  tendency  to  meaningless  verse  is  so 
strong.  There  is  another  extreme,  however, 
against  which  we  are  to  guard.  It  is  too  often  as- 
sumed that  in  lyric  poetry  feeling  and  intellect  are 
always  in  the  inverse  'ratio;  that  lyric  verse  is 
thereby  devoid  of  mental  life  and  has  no  higher 
purpose  than  the  expression  of  shallow  emotion  for 
trivial  ends.  The  school  of  poetry  before  us  is  a 
sufficient  answer  to  this  superficial  theory.  Aris- 
ing at  a  time  when  the  thoughts  of  all  men  were 
necessarily  turned  to  living  issues  and  indifference 
or  unnaturalness  could  not  be  brooked,  there  is 
the  utter  absence  of  the  conventional  and  super- 
ficial. The  poetry  of  the  era  is  as  fresh  and  tonic 
as  the  air  of  an  October  morning,  and  the  master 
bards  of  the  time  are  examples  of  all  that  is 
healthful  and  stimulating.  The  difference  between 
creative  and  impassioned  verse  is  not  that  the  one 
is  intellectual  and  the  other  emotional,  but  that, 
each  being  under  the  supremacy  of  mind,  there  is 
a  freer  play  of.  the  emotional  in  the  latter,  a  more 
direct  expression  of  heart-life  and  a  somewhat 
wider  departure  from  established  literary  law.  So 
long  as  the  lyric  portion  of  our  poetry  is  what  it 


70  General  Discussions 

is,  and  the  impassioned  lines  of  Burns  and  Scott 
are  kept  vividly  in  mind,  the  different  forms  of 
poetry  will  be  assigned  their  proper  respective 
rank,  and  the  charge  of  mental  weakness  be  fully 
met  as  applied  to  the  poetry  of  feeling.  Oratory 
has  been  defined  as  "  thought  with  an  impulse  in 
it."  If  we  add  the  characteristic  of  meter,  the  def- 
inition will  apply  to  lyric  verse.  It  is  the  metri- 
cal expression  of  ideas  in  impassioned  forms. 

2.  What  will  probably  be  the  next  important 
transition  in  English  poetry?  Our  poetry  may  be 
said  still  to  retain  something  of  its  main  charac- 
teristic as  a  poetry  of  feeling,  distinct,  on  the  one 
hand,  from  the  creative  school  of  Elizabethan 
times,  and,  on  the  other,  from  the  critical  school 
of  Queen  Anne.  The  true  poetic  passion  which 
poured  into  the  language  through  the  writings  of 
Goldsmith  and  Thomson,  of  Cowper  and  Burns, 
is  to  some  degree  exhibited  in  many  of  their  im- 
mediate successors.  This  is  especially  seen  in  the 
writings  of  Byron,  Scott,  and  Moore.  They  were 
impassioned  in  the  same  sense  and  to  the  same 
degree  in  which  Burns  was;  the  very  name 
"  romantic,"  as  applied  to  the  school  of  Byron, 
marking  it  sharply  from  all  that  is  conventional 
and  formal.  The  noonday  glory  of  this  poetry  of 


Transition  to  Modern  British  Poetry         ?j 

true  sentiment  is  no  sooner  reached,  however,  than 
we  can  see  the  signs  of  its  temporary  reign  and 
possible  decline.  Even  the  Lake  Poets  are  reflect- 
ive in  their  verse  rather  than  emotional.  Though 
it  was  their  purpose  and  their  pride  to  write  in  the 
interests  of  human  life  and  the  beauties  of  natural 
scenery,  the  cast  of  the  lines  is  too  contemplative 
to  admit  of  the  freest  expression  of  feeling  or  to 
remind  one  in  any  striking  manner  of  lyric  ardor. 
Just  at  this  time,  moreover,  in  the  very  heart  of 
the  era,  arose  what  with  justice  may  be  called  the 
revival  of  the  poetry  of  Pope  in  real  Augustan 
form.  We  see  this  in  the  classical  school  of  Gif- 
ford,  Rogers,  Campbell,  and  Landor  —  no  one  of 
whom,  whatever  his  lyric  fervor  may  have  been, 
at  all  approached  the  natural  sentiment  of  Byron. 
Glancing  down  the  line  of  our  more  modern  Eng- 
lish poets  the  same  critical  order  of  verse  is  too 
apparent  to  be  without  its  prophetic  teaching.  The 
very  names  applied  by  literary  historians  to  these 
modern  schools  —  the  Alexandrine,  the  Andro- 
theistic,  the  Realistic,  and  the  Art  school  —  teach 
the  same  lesson.  We  plainly  see  this  classical  bias 
in  Keats  and  Robert  Browning;  in  Arnold,  and, 
to  some  degree,  in  Tennyson.  Mrs.  Browning, 
more  than  anv  one,  in  this  later  era,  reminds  us 


T2  General  Discussions 

of  the  deep  pathos  of  the  earlier.  All  this  is  sug- 
gestive, and  gives  us  fair  warning,  that  since  the 
days  of  Scott  a  transition  has  been  in  progress 
from  the  impassioned  order  of  poetry.  Is  the 
transition  to  be  partial  and  temporary  or  complete 
and  prolonged?  Here  we  are  inclined  to  take  a 
hopeful  attitude,  as  the  later  Victorian  lyrists 
evince  a  tendency  to  recall  their  age  to  the  idyllic 
excellence  of  earlier  days.  It  is  along  this  line  of 
impassioned  song  that  Watson  and  Masefield  and 
Noyes  and  the  English  laureate,  Bridges,  are 
working. 


IV 

ENGLISH  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

THE  object  now  before  us  is  to  sketch  this  in- 
teresting history  from  its  earliest  period,  in  the 
Golden  Age,  on  through  the  following  centuries, 
to  the  days  of  Coleridge  and  Matthew  Arnold, — 
the  chief  exponent  of  the  more  modern  era. 

THE    AGE    OF    SIDNEY    AND    BACON     (1550-1625) 

The  earliest  substantive  expression  of  English 
criticism  takes  us  back  to  the  days  of  Elizabeth, 
to  the  middle  years  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Just 
here  it  is  significant  to  note  that  the  rise  of  Eng- 
lish criticism,  as  a  separate  form  of  literary  art, 
is  thus  coterminous  with  the  rise  of  Modern  Eng- 
lish, both  as  a  language  and  a  literature,  as  dis- 
tinct from  that  of  Old  and  Middle  English. 

The  importance  of  this  concurrence  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  confirms  the  natural  relation  of  origi- 
nal authorship  and  the  judicial  examination  of  it 
as  a  finished  product.  This  is  not  to  affirm  that 
the  literary  criticism  of  Elizabethan  days  was  at 

73 


74  General  Discussions 

all  as  high  in  quality  as  was  the  creative  product 
which  it  examined,  but  that  as  soon  as  English 
literature  had  fairly  established  itself  as  a  nation- 
al type,  English  criticism,  also,  historically  arose, 
as  if,  from  the  outset,  to  guide  and  guard  its  un- 
folding history.  Prior  to  Shakespeare,  we  look  in 
vain  for  any  authoritative  example  of  criticism  on 
the  literary  side.  It  is  not  found  in  Caxton,  as 
the  first  English  printer  and  editor;  nor  in  More, 
nor  in  Ascham,  though  in  the  educational  reflec- 
tions of  his  "  Schoolmaster "  he  borders  on  the 
realm  of  the  critic  proper.  Even  in  the  days  of 
Elizabeth,  but  few  names  can  be  cited,  these  few 
having  the  honor  of  doing  pioneer  work  in  this 
new  departure  and  opening  the  way  for  all  later 
effort.  Chief  among  these  are  Sidney,  Puttenham, 
and  Webbe,  authors,  respectively,  of  "Apologie 
for  Poetrie,"  "Arte  of  English  Poesie,"  and  "  Dis- 
course of  English  Poetrie."  It  is  noticeable  that 
each  of  them,  as  critic,  dealt  with  poetry,  discuss- 
ing both  its  general  aspects  as  an  art  and  its 
special  expression  in  English  letters.  Herein  is 
revealed  the  fact  of  the  primacy  of  poetry  in  the 
Elizabethan  Age,  and,  also,  that  there  is  a  sense, 
tacitly  accepted,  that  in  poetry,  as  a  specifically 
aesthetic  product,  there  is  found  an  especially  ap- 


English  Literary  Criticism  75 

propriate  field  for  the  offices  of  the  literary  critic. 
It  was  so  in  the  time  of  Aristotle  and  Horace,  in 
classical  letters,  as  with  Lessing  and  Boileau  in 
modern  European  letters.  The  critic  seems,  first 
of  all,  to  be  a  critic  of  verse.  It  is,  moreover, 
noteworthy  that  these  three  pioneers  should  have 
arisen  together,  and  that  each  of  them,  as  a  uni- 
versity man,  served  to  establish  English  criticism, 
in  its  beginnings,  on  a  stable  and  scholarly  basis. 
Of  this  notable  trio,  Sidney  was  not  only  the  first 
one  to  prepare  his  treatise,  but  by  far  the  first  in 
the  line  of  mental  and  literary  competency,  his 
"Apologie,"  as  Morley  has  stated,  "  being  the  first 
piece  of  intellectual  literary  criticism  in  our  lan- 
guage." It  was  specifically,  as  the  name  implies, 
a  critical  work  on  the  defensive,  a  work  in  poetic 
apologetics,  occasioned  by  what  the  author  re- 
garded as  an  unjust  attack  on  poetry  by  Gorson 
in  his  "  School  of  Abuse,"  dedicated,  by  way  of 
banter,  to  Sidney  himself.  It  was  an  attack,  more 
directly,  on  dramatic  poetry,  then  the  dominant 
type,  and  on  the  stage  itself.  Gorson,  however, 
later  modified  his  views,  in  his  "Apologie  for  the 
School  of  Abuse."  He  was  the  Jeremy  Collier  of 
the  Golden  Age. 

As  to  the  content  of  the  "Apologie,"  suffice  it  to 


76  General  Discussions 

say,  the  subject  is  presented  in  three  primary  sec- 
tions. In  the  first,  a  general  defense,  he  contends 
that  poetry  is  the  oldest  of  all  compositions,  that 
the  poet  is  a  creator,  and  the  best  moral  teacher 
among  men.  In  the  second  section,  he  answers 
objections,  among  others,  as  to  the  uselessness, 
falseness,  and  immoral  tendencies  of  'poetry,  in- 
sisting that  Plato's  banishment  of  it  from  his  com- 
monwealth had  reference  to  its  abuse  only.  In  the 
third  section  the  critic  reviews  the  status  of  Eng- 
lish poetry  in  his  own  day  and  the  reasons  for  its 
decline,  Shakespeare  not  yet  having  written.  "  Be- 
fore I  give  my  pen  a  full  stop,"  he  quaintly  says, 
"  I  am  to  inquire  why  England,  the  mother  of  ex- 
cellent minds,  should  be  grown  so  hard  a  step- 
mother to  poets."  It  is  at  the  close  of  this  portion 
that  he  breaks  out  in  high  eulogium  of  his  native 
English,  as  he  says,  "  For  the  uttering  sweetly  and 
properly  the  conceits  of  the  mind,  which  is  the  end 
of  speech,  that  hath  it  equally  with  any  other 
tongue  in  the  world."  Ending  in  the  line  of 
pleasantry,  he  wishes  the  despisers  of  poetry  no 
greater  curse  than  that,  when  in  love,  they  have 
no  sonnet  to  celebrate  it,  and,  when  they  die,  no 
epitaph  in  verse  to  perpetuate  their  memory. 
With  the  name  of  Sidney  is  always  identified 


English  Literary  Criticism  77 

that  of  Puttenham.  The  special  occasion  of  his 
work,  as  that  of  Sidney's,  was  the  low  state  of 
poetry  in  the  earlier  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  As 
Sidney,  also,  he  divides  his  treatise  into  three 
books  or  sections.  In  the  first  he  discusses,  among 
•other  topics,  what  poetry  is ;  insists  that  poets 
were  the  first  priests,  prophets,  legislators,  and 
philosophers;  examines  the  causes  of  poetic  de- 
cline; how  poetry  has  been  made  the  medium  of 
praise  and  censure;  and,  in  his  mention  of  the 
most  notable  English  poets,,  such  as  Chaucer, 
Langland,  Wyatt,  Surrey,  and  Sidney,  selects 
Chaucer  as  the  "  most  renowned  of  all,"  and 
speaks  of  Sidney's  and  Spenser's  special  excellence 
in  "  pastoral  poesie." 

Of  the  second  and  third  books,  respectively,  on 
Meter  and  Ornament,  we  need  not  speak  in  detail. 
It  is  thus  clear  that  Puttenham  and  Sidney  were 
engaged  in  the  same  great  work  of  redeeming 
English  poetry  from  the  reproach  into  which  it 
had  fallen  and  placing  it  on  a  plane  of  deserved 
respect.  Webbe's  "  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie  " 
was  written  with  the  same  intent.  To  these  three 
pioneers  the  names  of  two  contemporaries  greater 
than  any  one  of  them  should  be  added.  The  one 
is  Ben  Jonson,  "  the  great  classic  dramatist  of  the 


78  General  Discussions 

English  Renaissance,"  who  "  first  clearly  stated  the 
chief  principles  of  classic  criticism,  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  law  is  as  efficacious  for  the  poet  as  for 
the  critic."  It  is  in  his  "  Discoveries  "  that  he  dis- 
courses on  such  topics  as  the  Criticism  of  Poets 
and  Poetry,  and  Shakespeare,  whose  memory  lie 
honored  "  this  side  idolatry."  His  comments  as 
a  critic  on  style  are  well  worth  heeding  to-day, 
that  for  a  man  to  write  well  there  are  three  neces- 
sities — *"  to  read  the  best  authors,  observe  the  best 
speakers,  and  exercise  much  his  own  style."  In 
his  "  Conversations  with  Drummond,"  he  reviews 
his  contemporaries,  Sidney,  Spenser,  and  Shake- 
speare, and  such  foreign  authors  as  Petrarch, 
Guarini,  and  Lucan. 

The  other  name  is  Lord  Bacon,  who,  especially 
in  his  "  Essays  "  and  "Advancement  of  Learning," 
renders  invaluable  critical  service,  "  sketching  the 
outlines  of  a  criticism,  liberal  in  spirit,  philosophi- 
cal and  historic  in  method."  The  special  signifi- 
cance of  the  work  of  Jonson  and  of  Bacon  is  seen 
in  the  fact  that  they  were  critics  on  the  side  of 
prose  and  the  first  of  this  order  in  our  literary 
history.  These  were  the  pioneers  in  Elizabethan 
criticism,  deferent  to  the  past  in  so  far  as  it  was 
helpful  to  the  new  science  that  they  were  estab- 


English  Literary  Criticism  ?lj 

lishing  and,  yet,  loyal  enough  to  the  spirit  of  the 
new  era  to  present,  at  length,  a  body  of  critical 
canons  suited  to  the  new  awakening  in  English  let- 
ters. This  is  not  to  say  that  the  first  age  of  the 
critical  art  in  England  was  of  a  brilliant  order, 
but  that,  in  its  place  and  time,  it  marked  a  dis- 
tinctive result  along  an  untried  line,  definitely 
opened  the  history  of  English  criticism,  and  made 
it  possible  for  all  later  critics  to  carry  on  the 
art  to  better  issues. 

THE   AGE    OF   DRYDEN    (162-5-1702) 

We  are  now  brought,  in  historical  order,  to  the 
second  great  era  of  English  criticism,  in  which 
the  central  figure  is  Dryden.  Although,  on  the 
principle  of  action  and  reaction  in  literature,  the 
creative  epoch  of  Bacon  and  Spenser  would  nat- 
urally be  followed  by  an  era  of  criticism,  that 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century  that  lies  between 
the  death  of  Shakespeare  (1616)  and  the  restora- 
tion of  Charles  the  Second  (1660)  was,  in  the 
main,  a  non-critical  era,  in  so  far  as  any  sub- 
stantive advance  was  made  over  the  results  already 
reached.  In  so  far  as  literary  criticism  did  exist, 
it  marked  a  decline  from  established  principles, 
and  expressed  itself  either  in  the  metaphysical 


80  General  Discussions 

conceits  of  Donne  and  his  school,  or  the  poetic 
conceits  of  Rymer  and  his  followers.  The  stormy 
days  of  the  early  Stuarts,  and  the  equally  restless 
era  of  the  Commonwealth,  were  quite  too  un- 
friendly for  anything  like  the  judicial  habit  of 
mind.  It  is  only  when  we  come  to  the  name  and 
work  of  Dryden  (1632-1700)  that  we  are  at  all 
reminded  of  the  critical  canons  of  Baconian  days, 
and  find  Sidney  and  Jonson  themselves  super- 
seded by  our  first  English  literary  critic  in  the 
modern  sense  of  that  term.  In  Dryden's  work,  as 
we  are  correctly  told,  "  there  culminated  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  of  critical  progress,  through  which 
the  thought  of  an  earlier  England  became  a 
shaping  force  in  the  eighteenth  century."  Though 
having,  as  opposing  elements,  the  undue  preva- 
lence of  foreign  models,  and  a  consequent  corrup- 
tion of  literary  taste,  Dryden  still  was  successful 
in  reinstating  the  scientific  method  of  earlier  days, 
and,  through  the  new  awakening  of  the  Age  of 
William  the  Third,  laying  broader  foundations 
for  all  his  contemporaries  and  followers.  If  he 
cannot  be  called  the  father  of  modern  English 
criticism,  he  was,  certainly,  its  most  notable  her- 
ald and  forerunner,  and  is  still  contesting  the  field 
with  Doctor  Johnson  and  Coleridge.  He  is  our 


English  Literary  Criticism  81 

first  example  of  what  Brunetiere  has  called  "  ap- 
plied criticism,"  a  criticism  "  which  seeks  in  the 
works  it  examines  to  discover  the  laws  of  their 
genesis "  -  in  a  word,  scientific  or  philosophic 
criticism.  If  Milton  is  "  the  last  of  the  Elizabeth- 
ans "  in  general  letters,  Dryden  is  such  in  criti- 
cism. Standing  midway  between  the  old  and  the 
new,  he  caught  and  reflected  the  best  features  of 
each,  as  he,  also,  happily  acknowledged,  and  with- 
out inconsistency,  the  excellence  of  the  best  clas- 
sical and  Continental  models,  being  alike  loyal  to 
Aristotle,  Horace,  and  Corneille,  and  to  all  his 
English  predecessors.  It  was  singularly  fortunate 
that  when  French  taste  was  dominant  in  England 
Dryden  should  have  enjoyed  the  interpretation  of 
such  taste  by  the  celebrated  French  critic,  Saint- 
Evremond,  who,  by  reason  of  his  long  residence 
in  England,  may  be  said  to  have  imbibed  the  Eng- 
lish spirit  and  delivered  his  decisions  as  an  impar- 
tial judge.  Indeed,  Dry  den's  superiority  to  his 
age  is  nowhere  more  apparent  than  along  this 
line  of  literary  effort,  acknowledging  and  estab- 
lishing standards  of  taste  quite  above  the  govern- 
ing temper  of  the  time,  demanding  new  canons  of 
literary  art  when  authors  .  were  content  with  the 
old  or  indifferent  to  any,  and  insisting,  amid  all 


82  General  Discussions 

opposition,  that  the  time  had  now  come  to  follow 
other  nations  "  at  a  distance "  and  announce  a 
declaration  of  literary  independence  in  England. 
It  is  in  this  spirit  and  with  these  ends  in  view  that 
he  wrote  his  famous  Critical  Prefaces,  and,  more 
especially,  in  1667,  his  "  Essay  of  Dramatic 
Poesy,"  the  first  English  critique  in  verse,  after 
the  Elizabethan  Age,  and  the  first  in  merit  and  in- 
fluence as  related  to  the  developing  history  of 
criticism.  To  quote,  at  any  length,  from  this 
notable  essay  is  unnecessary.  Represented  in  the 
form  of  dialogue,  among  four  distinct  characters, 
of  which  Dryden  himself  is  one,  they  discuss,  as 
they  row  up  and  down  the  Thames,  the  nature 
and  value  of  poetry  in  general,  and,  more  particu- 
larly, of  dramatic  poetry;  the  comparative  excel- 
lence of  classical  and  of  English  verse;  of  the 
present  age  of  English  poetry  and  that  preceding; 
and  of  the  French  and  the  English  drama.  It  is  in 
this  connection  that  Dryden  says  of  Shakespeare, 
that  "  he  was  the  man  who  of  all  modern  and,  per- 
haps, ancient  poets  had  the  largest  and  most  com- 
prehensive soul,  naturally  learned  and  always 
great."  Of  Ben  Jonson  he  writes,  that  "  he  was 
the  most  learned  and  judicious  dramatic  writer 
which  any  theater  ever  had."  Shakespeare  he 


English  Literary  Criticism  83 

calls  "  the  Homer,"  and  Jonson,  "  the  Virgil,"  of 
dramatic  poets ;  and,  he  adds,  "  Jonson,  I  admire, 
but  Shakespeare  I  love."  The  "  Essay "  having 
been  subjected  to  adverse  criticism,  Dry  den  hastens 
to  justify  himself  in  his  treatise  "A  Defense  of  an 
Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,"  in  which  he  combines 
sound  reasoning  with  the  most  generous  pleas- 
antry, and  shows  that  he  has  the  courtesy  as  well 
as  the  ability  of  the  true  critic.  In  fine,  if  we  will 
thoroughly  traverse  the  province  of  Dryden's  crit- 
ical study,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  we  will  find  more 
sound  suggestion  than,  as  yet,  had  existed  in  Eng- 
lish letters,  and  will  also  find  the  solid  basis  now 
laid,  for  the  first  time,  for  the  developing  criticism 
of  the  later  writers.  It  is  largely  to  Dryden's 
credit  that  while  Sidney  and  Puttenham  and 
Webbe  were  critics  of  poetry  only,  and  Jonson  and 
Bacon  of  prose  only,  he  covered,  for  the  first,  the 
comprehensive  province  of  general  criticism,  and 
thus  justifies  the  judgment  of  many  English  stu- 
dents that  the  science  of  English  criticism  was 
fairly  established  by  his  early  and  eminent  offices. 
Closely  connected  .with  the-  antecedent  work  of 
Dryden  in  criticism  and  preceding  Johnson,  there 
are  a  few  names  that  deserve  a  word  of  comment. 
Sir  William  Temple,  whose  death  in  1698  was  al- 


84  General  Discussions 

most  coincident  with  Dryden's,  continued  the  old 
discussion  in  his  "  Essay  on  Ancient  and  Modern 
Language,"  a  subject  which  Jonathan  Swift  also 
took  up  in  his  famous  "  Battle  of  the  Books."  It 
is  significant,  as  to  Swift,  that,  despite  his  cynical 
temper  as  a  man,  he  insisted  that  the  end  of  crit- 
icism was  the  detection  of  merit,  while  it  was  only 
in  the  light  of  the  abuse  of  criticism,  at  the  hands 
of  Bentley  and  others,  that  he  called  it  "  a  malig- 
nant deity."  It  is  in  his  satire  "  The  Tale  of  a 
Tub  "  that  he  says,  "  Every  true  critic  is  a  hero 
born,  from  whom  the  commonwealth  of  learning 
has  in  all  ages  received  immense  benefits."  Early 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  Addison's  Spectator  and 
Tatler  appeared,  with  their  weekly  reflections  on 
Augustan  life  and  letters,  critically  discussing 
such  topics  as  words,  taste,  style,  poetry,  art, 
imagination,  language,  education,  beauty,  sublim- 
ity, and  criticism  itself  as  a  literary  method  and 
function,  presenting  it,  for  the  first  time,  in  un- 
technical  and  attractive  form,  so  as  to  make  the 
reader  quite  unaware  that  he  was  sitting  in  judg- 
ment on  books  and  authors.  In  his  paper  on 
"  Taste,"  he  gives  us  a  definition  that  unifies  all 
conflicting  claims,  as  he  says,  "  It  is  that  faculty 
of  the  soul  which  discerns  the  beauties  of  an  au- 


English  Literary  Criticism  85 

thor  with  pleasure  and  his  imperfections  with  dis- 
like." This  is  an  apt  illustration  of  the  real  Ad- 
disonian  spirit,  through  the  expression  of  which  the 
Augustan  public  of  his  time  was  rebuked  without 
being  offended,  and  was  led  to  believe  that,  with 
all  their  faults,  the  better  element  prevailed  in  life 
and  letters.  Addison's  chief  critical  work,  how- 
ever, was  his  acute  and  comprehensive  review  of 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  by  which  he  not  only  justified 
his  own  claims  as  a  critic,  and  exalted  the  great 
Puritan  poet  in  the  eyes  of  his  contemporaries, 
but  also  extended  and  applied  the  principles  laid 
down  by  Dryden  and  his  co-workers.  The  intro- 
duction to  the  critique  is  itself  a  valuable  piece  of 
literary  criticism,  in  which,  among  other  subjects, 
he  discusses  the  wide  topic  of  epic  verse,  the  merits 
and  defects  of  Milton's  great  poem,  and  criticism 
'itself  as  a  literary  process  and  province.  In  writ- 
ing of  criticism,  it  is  of  interest  to  note  that  he 
insists  on  >  certain  qualifications  as  essential  —  that 
the  critic  should  be  versed  in  classical  poetry ;  that 
he  should  have  a  clear  and  logical  head,  and  that 
he  should  dwell  upon  merits  rather  than  on  de- 
fects. No  criticism  of  any  separate  English  work 
or  author,  at  all  comparable  to  it,  had  hitherto  ap- 
peared, and  none  in  which  the  historical  and  lit- 


86  General  Discussions 

erary  progress  of  English  criticism  as  a  science 
and  art  is  better  shown.  It  is  greatly  to  the  credit 
of  this  Augustan  essayist  that  he  should  have 
deemed  it  both  safe  and  essential  to  devote  eigh- 
teen papers  of  a  popular  weekly  periodical  to  the 
discussion  of  so  exalted  and  difficult  a  theme, 
while  it  is  no  less  to  the  credit  of  the  general  lit- 
erary public  of  the  time  that  the  criticism  was 
welcomed  in  English  drawing-rooms  and  clubs. 
In  no  particular  was  Addison's  work  more  sug- 
gestive and  promising  than  in  the  combination  it 
evinced  of  the  best  traditions  of  the  past  with  the 
newly  awakened  movements  and  forces  that  were 
now  visible  in  England,  being  liberal  and  conserva- 
tive in  such  wise  as  to  make  him  a  safe  guide  to 
all  classes  in  matters  of  taste.  It  is  also  greatly  to 
the  credit  of  Doctor  Johnson  that,  in  spite  of  all 
the  adverse  comments  of  which  Addison  was  the 
subject,  he  insisted  that  Addison  as  a  critic  filled 
a  place  and  did  a  work  which  no  one  of  his  con- 
temporaries could  so  successfully  have  done. 

Another  name  of  special  excellence  in  this  era 
is  that  of  Alexander  Pope,  the  most  representative 
classical  poet  of  the  age.  Poet  that  he  was,  he 
was  a  critic  as  well,  the  union  of  criticism  and 
satire  being  one  of  his  distinctive  features,  and 


English  Literary  Criticism  87 

giving  him  thus  a  unique  place  in  the  literary  his- 
tory of  the  time.  It  is  in  his  justly  celebrated 
"  Essay  on  Criticism/'  published  in  1711,  when  he 
was  just  past  his  majority,  that  he  appears  in  the 
special  role  of  an  English  critic,  connecting  a  his- 
tory of  the  science  with  a  statement  of  what  he 
conceives  to  be  its  leading  laws  and  purposes.  He 
discusses  the  topic  under  three  divisions  —  the 
Basis  of  Criticism,  the  Causes  Opposing  It,  and 
the  Canons  Producing  It.  In  the  first  he  contends 
that  as  much  ability  is  needed  for  criticism  as  for 
creative  production ;  that  taste  is  as  rare  as  genius ; 
and  that  nature  is  the  best  guide  to  the  judgment, 
though  it  should  be  fortified  by  training.  In  the 
second  he  emphasizes  pride  of  opinion,  partiality, 
imperfect  education,  and  a  superficial  method  as 
the  special  hindrances  to  a  sound  judicial  process 
in  literature.  In  the  closing  section  he  adduces, 
among  the  aids  to  a  true  criticism,  candor,  mod- 
esty, and  good  breeding;  descants  on  the  charac- 
ter of  a  good  critic,  and  refers  his  readers  to  Aris- 
totle, Horace,  Longinus,  and  Boileau  as  among  the 
great  critics  of  classical  letters.  Appearing  at 
about  the  same  time  as  Addison's  great  critique,  it 
did  for  general  criticism  what  that  critique  did  for 
the  science  as  applied  to  a  concrete  product ;  so 


88  General  Discussions 

that,  as  contemporary  contributions  to  the  develop- 
ing art,  their  value  cannot  be  exaggerated.  It  is 
pertinent  to  note,  just  here,  that,  though  Dry  den 
was  Pope's  ideal  and  accepted  guide,  this  is  not  to 
say  that  English  criticism  had  not  advanced  since 
the  days  of  Dryden,  nor  is  it  to  affirm  that  in  this 
special  province  the  work  of  Pope  was  not  one 
of  the  indications  of  this  advance. 

THE   AGE    OF   JOHNSON    (1700-1800) 

We  reach,  at  this  point,  the  third  representa- 
tive historical  stage  in  the  history  of  English  crit- 
icism, and  its  third  great  exponent,  Doctor  John- 
son. He  sustained  the  same  relation  to  the  eigh- 
teenth century  that  Dryden  did  to  the  seventeenth, 
and  Sidney  and  Bacon  to  the  sixteenth,  though 
differing  decidedly  from  any  one  of  them  in  his 
closer  relation  to  the  opening  of  the  Modern  Era 
Proper  and  in  the  almost  autocratic  position  that 
he  held  among  the  authors  of  his  time.  Born  at  the 
opening  of  the  century  (1709)  and  living  well  on 
toward  its  close  (1785)  he  may  be  said  to  have 
dominated  its  literary  life,  as  Sidney  and  Bacon 
in  no  sense  did  that  of  their  time,  or  Dryden  that 
of  his  century.  This  in  itself  was  enough  to  have 
made  him  a  critic  of  men  and  books,  even  if  by 


English  Literary  Criticism  8$ 

natural  bent  and  training  and  definite  purpose  and 
a  happy  conjunction  of  events  he  had  not  been 
made  such.  He  was  the  self-appointed  and  ac- 
cepted literary  dictator  of  his  time,  to  whom  the 
rising  authors  of  the  day  naturally  looked  for 
needed  counsel,  and  whom  it  was  somewhat  un- 
safe for  the  most  experienced  writers  to  ignore. 
Criticism,  moreover,  was  as  congenial  to  him,  as 
it  was  by  necessity  made  a  part  of  his  literary 
work.  So  independent  an  author  as  Reynolds,  in 
speaking  of  his  own  "  Discourses,"  writes  that 
"  whatever  merit  they  may  have  must  be  imputed 
in  a  great  measure  to  the  education  I  may  be  said 
to  have  had  under  Doctor  Johnson " ;  and,  he 
adds,  "  no  man  had  like  him  the  faculty  of  teach- 
ing minds  the  art  of  thinking."  Goldsmith  and 
others  were  completely  under  his  sway.  Thus  it 
is  that  whatever  he  wrote  was  in  a  sense  critical, 
an  independent  judgment  on  the  topic  in  hand. 
His  most  discursive  essays  as  given  us  in  the 
Rambler  and  Idler  and  Adventurer  are  full  of  dis- 
tinct critical  suggestion,  so  that  their  pages  might 
easily  afford  a  good  manual  on  the  critical  art. 

The  satirical  reflection  of  Macaulay,  that  John- 
son's criticisms  were  valuable  on  topics  that  were 
treated  in  the  line  of  his  own  preferences,  is 


§0  General  Discussions 

scarcely  tenable.  Johnson's  immense  learning  and 
judicial  habit  of  mind  and  ingenuous  interest  in 
literature  saved  him  from  such  a  narrowness  of 
insight  and  purpose.  In  his  essays  he  makes  a 
special  study  of  English  diction,  though  inclined 
unduly  to  favor  the  Latin.  Simplicity  of  language 
was  the  feature  that  he  most  emphasized.  "  If  an 
author  writes  to  be  admired,"  he  says,  "  rather 
than  to  be  understood,  he  counteracts  the  first  end 
of  writing."  He  calls  it  the  "  bugbear  style,  by 
which  the  most  evident  truths  are  made  obscure." 
By  way  of  justifying  his  own  apparent  violation 
of  this  law  of  clearness,  he  writes,  "  When  com- 
mon words  were  less  pleasing  to  the  ear  or  less 
distinct,  I  have  familiarized  terms  of  philosophy, 
applying  them  to  popular  ideas."  In  other  words, 
he  would  say  that  his  final  purpose  was  clearness, 
and  that  there  were  times,  and  not  infrequently, 
when  the  longer  word  was  the  better  word,  and 
the  word  of  Latin  origin  better  than  the  one  of 
English.  His  notable  "  Dictionary  of  the  English 
Language"  (1755)  should  not  be  omitted  in  any 
estimate  of  his  critical  labors,  as  he  deals,  in  his 
preface,  with  the  history  of  the  vernacular.  It  is 
here  that  he  says  that  "  our  language  for  about  a 
century  has  been  deviating  toward  a  Gallic  struc- 


English  Literary  Criticism  1)1 

ture  and  phraseology  from  which  it  ought  to  be 
our  endeavor  to  recall  it."  He  indicates  the  true 
relation  of  native  and  foreign  factors  in  English 
when  he  says,  "  I  believe  that  whoever  knows  the 
English  tongue  in  its  present  extent  will  be  able 
to  express  his  thoughts  without  further  help  from 
other  nations." 

This  linguistic  side  of  Johnson's  training  was  an 
important  feature  in  his  critical  work,  in  that  it 
showed  the  true  relation  of  language  to  literature ; 
emphasized  the  fact  that  good  diction,  after  all, 
lies  at  the  basis  of  all  good  writing,  and  that  Eng- 
lish authors,  if  true  to  their  lineage  and  advan- 
tages, would  turn  their  eyes  less  and  less  backward 
to  classical  models  and  prove  by  example  the  suf- 
ficiency of  their  own  mother  tongue.  At  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  this  order  of 
suggestion  was  eminently  timely. 

The  most  characteristic  work  of  criticism  from 
Doctor  Johnson  is  his  "  Lives  of  the  English 
Poets,"  a  work  distinctively  literary,  and  the  one 
in  which  he  aimed  to  set  forth  his  particular  views 
on  the  poetic  product  of  those  whom  he  regarded 
as  the  chief  versifiers  of  English  letters,  strangely 
including  such  secondary  names  as  Denham, 
Rochester,  and  Sheffield,  and  even  more  strangely 


92  General  Discussions 

omitting  any  discussion  of  Shakespeare,  the  great- 
est poetic  personality  of  English  literature.  Among 
the  most  important  papers  are  those  on  Milton, 
Dryden,  Addison,  Swift,  and  Pope,  authors  of 
national  repute,  and  most  of  whom,  as  his  con- 
temporaries, were  contesting  with  him  for  the  lit- 
erary honor  of  their  time.  Nowhere  more  than  in 
these  pages  does  he  show  himself  to  be  the  master 
of  the  literary,  history  of  England,  even  though,  at 
times,  he  seems  to  interpret  that  history  from  the 
standpoint  of  personal  prejudice.  Absolute  inde- 
pendence of  judgment  is  his  dominant  character- 
istic as  a  critic,  a  deliverance  of  opinion  in  his  own 
way  quite  irrespective  of  tradition  or  the  concur- 
rent conclusions  of  others. 

A  comparison  of  Macaulay's  critiques  of  Milton 
and  of  Addison  with  those  of  Johnson  will  show 
how  much  farther  the  sage  of  Lichfield  carried  his 
independence  than  Macaulay  did,  never  for  a 
moment  pausing  to  inquire  what  others  had  said 
on  the  subject.  Of  Milton's  shorter  poems  he 
speaks  in  high  terms,  while  of  "  Paradise  Lost  " 
he  writes  that  "  with  respect  to  design,  it  may 
claim  the  first  place,  and,  with  respect  to  perform- 
ance, the  second  place  among  the  productions  of 
mankind."  In  his  paper  on  Dryden  he  empha- 


English  Literary  Criticism  93 

sizes  the  author's  work  in  the  line  of  literary  crit- 
icism, "  a  kind  of  learning,"  he  says,  "  then  almost 
new  in  the  English  language."  He  calls  Dryden 
"  the  father  of  English  criticism,  the  writer  who 
first  taught  us  to  determine  in  principles  the  merit 
of  composition,  his  '  Essay  on  Dramatic  Poetry ' 
being  the  first  regular  and  valuable  treatise  on  the 
art  of -writing."  One  of  the  most  notable  features 
of  this  critical  review  of  Dryden  by  Johnson  is 
his  frequent  and  favorable  reference  to  Shake- 
speare, whom  he  calls  the  greatest  preceding  dra- 
matic poet  of  England,  and  whose  enthusiastic 
eulogy  by  Dryden  he  thoroughly  indorses,  as  "  a 
perpetual  model  of  encomiastic  criticism."  His 
failure  to  include  Shakespeare  in  his  "  Lives  "  is 
thus  all  the  more  remarkable.  In  his  paper  on 
Addison  he  often  comes  to  his  defense  when  we 
would  least  expect  it,  as  in  his  comments  on 
"  Cato  "  and  the  "  Essays."  Of  his  general  style 
as  an  essayist,  he  writes,  "  His  prose  is  the  model 
of  the  middle  style."  It  is  in  the  closing  words 
of  his  critique  that  he  uses  the  oft-quoted  sentence, 
"  Whoever  wishes  to  attain  an  English  style  famil- 
iar but  not  coarse,  and  elegant  but  not  ostentatious, 
must  give  his  days  and  nights  to  the  volumes  of 
Addison."  Of  Swift's  character  and  work  he 


94  General  Discussions 

speaks  as  charitably  as  justice  will  allow,  rightly 
regarding  simplicity  as  the  governing  quality  of 
his  style,  and  wondering  how,  under  such  adverse 
conditions  of  temperament  and  habit,  he  could 
have  reached  the  eminence  he  did.  His  paper  on 
Pope  is  full  of  interest,  as  he  calls  Pope's  "  Iliad  " 
"  a  poetical  wonder,"  speaks  of  his  genius  and 
good  sense,  while  his  elaborate  comparison  of 
Pope  and  Dryden  is  one  of  the  most  instructive 
in  English  letters.  Of  his  "  Essay  on  Criticism  " 
he  says  that,  "  if  he  had  written  nothing  else,  it 
would  have  placed  him  among  the  first  critics  and 
poets." 

In  fine,  Doctor  Johnson,  in  these  "  Lives,"  has 
proved  his  right  to  be  called  our  first  great  literary 
critic  in  the  modern  sense,  as  much  in  advance  of 
Dryden  as  Dryden  was  of  Sidney,  improving  on 
the  critical  methods  hitherto  prevailing  and  estab- 
lishing new  canons  of  critical  procedure.  It  must 
be  said,  however,  that  Johnson's  independence  led 
him  into  some  errors  of  judgment  so  radical  and 
pervasive  that  their  force  will  probably  never  be 
fully  spent.  We  refer  to  his  narrowness  of  view 
and  his  want  of  sympathy,  after  substituting  his 
personal  opinion  for  that  of  scholars  in  general, 
and  cynically,  and  at  times  contemptuously,  ex- 


English  Literary  Criticism  95 

posing  the  faults  of  authors  under  review.  When 
he  speaks  of  Milton  as  "  vaporing  away  his  patriot- 
ism in  a  private  boarding  school,"  or  of  the  "  wild 
dramas  "  of  Shakespeare,  or  of  Dryden,  that  "  it 
would  be  difficult  to  prove  that  he  ever  made  any 
great  advances  in  literature,"  he  carries  the  cour- 
age of  his  convictions  to  the  extreme,  and  must, 
moreover,  be  charged  with  inconsistency.  Despite 
a-11  this  however,  his  prevailing  spirit  was  char- 
itable, and  most  of  his  judgments  were  catholic, 
so  that  he  rendered  an  invaluable  service  in  the 
line  of  critical  development. 

A  few  names  of  note  should  in  justice  here  be 
cited  as  working  along  the  lines  that  Johnson  laid 
down  and  hastening  the  incoming  of  the  later  eras 
of  literary  criticism.  Edmund  Burke,'  in  his 
"  Essay  on  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful,"  explained 
the  laws  and  principles  of  the  aesthetic  arts  with 
a  scientific  accuracy  hitherto  unknown.  Bentley, 
in  his  "  Dissertation  on  the  Epistles  of  Phalaris," 
aimed  to  show  that  these  were  modern  forgeries, 
and  thus  provoked  one  of  the  most  violent  contro- 
versies of  literature.  His  "  Observations  on  the 
Faerie  Queene  "  should  also  be  mentioned  as  pos- 
sessing exceptional  merit.  Thomas  Warton's 
"  History  of  English  Poetry  "  was  the  first  of  its 


9(>  General  Discussions 

kind,  and  opened  up  the  way  for  all  subsequent 
discussions  in  this  direction.  Alison's  "  Essay  on 
Taste "  was  in  the  line  of  Burke's  reflections, 
while  Lord  Kames,  in  his  "  Elements  of  Crit- 
icism," sought  to  establish  the  canons  of  taste  in 
art  and  letters.  The  critical  work  of  Gray,  though 
limited,  was  of  a  scholarly  order,  and  exhibited 
the  best  features  of  the  developing  art.  All  these 
critics  and  their  less  distinguished  co-workers  may 
be  said  to  have  constituted  the  transitional  school 
between  the  earlier  and  the  later  eras  of  English 
criticism,  between  the  somewhat  preparative  work 
of  Dryden  and  Johnson  and  the  more  highly  elab- 
orated methods  of  Coleridge  and  his  followers. 

Thus  does  the  expanding  record  of  our  vernac- 
ular criticism  run  from  Sidney  and  Bacon  on  to 
the  days  of  Matthew  Arnold,  and  the  contem- 
porary work  of  Morley  "and  Bagehot  and  Saints- 
bury  and  Dowden  and  our  own  American  Sted- 
man.  Nor  is  it  a  history  of  which  the  English 
people  need  be  ashamed,  safely  developing,  as  it 
has  done,  from  the  sixteenth  century  to  the  twenti- 
eth, along  the  course  of  our  general  national 
progress,  and  our  more  specific  literary  advance- 
ments, never  divorced,  for  any  length  of  time, 
from  the  creative  work  of  our  greatest  authors, 


English  Literary  Criticism  9? 

and  rarely  forgetting  the  fact  that  the  just  object 
of  criticism,  as  of  literature  in  general,  is,  what 
Arnold  declares  it  to  be,  "  a  disinterested  endeavor 
to  learn  and  propagate  the  best  that  is  known  and 
thought  in  the  world." 

The  later  era  of  English  literary  criticism  may 
be  said  to  have  two  well-defined  periods,  the  first 
extending  from  1800  to  1850,  and  the  second  from 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  to  the  present. 

THE    EARLIER   ERA THE   AGE   OF    COLERIDGE 

This  opens  with  the  name  and  work  of  Cole- 
ridge, a  name  which  recalls  to  the  mind  of  the 
English  student  the  entire  content  of  antecedent 
English  criticism,  the  greatest  critic  of  his  time, 
and  greater  by  far  than  any  who  preceded  him, 
the  influence  of  whose  thought  and  life  seems  to 
widen  and  deepen  with  the  years.  One  of  the 
many  significant  facts  connected  with  his  critical 
work  is  that  it  comes  to  prominence  just  at  the 
opening  of  the  nineteenth  century,  just  at  the  bor- 
der line  between  the  older  and  the  younger  schools, 
and  inaugurates  the  Modern  Era  Proper.  Cole- 
ridge stands  in  his  day  as  a  critic  much  as  Spen- 
ser stood  as  a  poet  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  hav- 
ing in  hand  the  difficult  problem  of  adjusting  the 


98  General  Discussions 

old  and  the  new,  the  conservative  and  the  progres- 
sive ;  a  problem,  we  may  add,  more  successfully 
solved  by  the  critic  than  by  the  poet. 

Another  fact  of  importance  as  to  Coleridge  is 
that  of  the  general  relation  of  English  literature 
to  the  German,  and  their  special  relations  with- 
in the  sphere  of  criticism.  So  decided  is  this  rela- 
tion that  a  recent  American  critic  dwells  upon 
"  The  German  Sources  of  Coleridge's  Criticism," 
stating  what  these  sources  are  and  to  what  extent 
the  great  English  critic  availed  himself  of  them. 
First  of  all  was  the  accepted  fact  that  Germany 
stood  for  thought  and  thinking,  for  a  new  form 
and  measure  of  mental  life  as  distinct  from  the 
superficial  habits  of  mind  that  had  so  largely 
prevailed  in  Europe.  It  was  this  specifically  in- 
tellectual quality  that  at  once  attracted  the  con- 
templative Coleridge,  inciting  him  to  new  ambi- 
tions in  philosophy  and  letters,  and  making  it  nec- 
essary for  him  to  resort  to  Germany  in  1798  as  a 
university  student  in  order  to  bring  himself  in 
fullest  contact  with  the  scholarly  activity  that  there 
prevailed.  As  Dryden  had  resorted  to  Corneille 
and  other  French  masters  as  a  model,  Coleridge 
under  the  newer  impulse  from  the  Continent 
looked  back  to  Lessing  and  Schelling  and  kindred 


English  Literary  Criticism  99 

authors,  who  in  their  study  of  philosophy  and  lit- 
erature and  art  based  their  researches  on  funda- 
mental principles  and  followed  a  logical  method. 
Indeed,  so  captivated  was  Coleridge  by  this  new 
awakening  in  Northern  Europe  that  he  was  ac- 
cused of  being  under  the  dominance  of  it.  The 
Introduction  to  the  "  Biographia  Literaria "  was 
devoted  to  a  defense  of  the  critic  against  the  as- 
persions of  Black^vood's)  especially  as  to  his  use  of 
Schelling's  ideas.  Nothing  in  the  line  of  plagia- 
rism was  ever  proved  against  him. 

In  noting  the  specific  work  of  Coleridge  as  a 
critic,  there  are  two  of  his  productions  that  deserve 
special  study,  the  "  Biographia  Literaria  "  and  his 
"  Lectures  on  Shakespeare." 

Some  of  his  topics  and  statements  in  the  "  Bio- 
graphia "  may  be  noted.  In  writing  of  the  poetry 
of  Pope  and  his  school,  it  is  clear  that  he  is  out 
of  sympathy  with  it  as  too  artificial  and  too  de- 
pendent on  French  authority,  even  though  he 
speaks  of  Pope's  "  Iliad "  as  "  an  astonishing 
product  of  matchless  talent  and  ingenuity."  He 
affirms  a  significant  literary  law  as. he  states  that 
"  not  the  poem  which  we  have  read,  but  that  to 
which  we  return  with  the  greatest  pleasure,  pos- 
sesses the  general  power  and  claims  the  name  of 


100  General  Discussions 

essential  poetry."  In  discussing  Wordsworth's 
"  Lyrical  Ballads,"  he  strangely  asserts  that  "  a 
poem  contains  the  same  elements  as  a  prose  com- 
position," the  difference  consisting  in  a  "  differ- 
ence of  combination  of  these  elements  and  a  dif- 
ferent object  in  their  expression."  He  defines  a 
poem  as  "  that  species  of  composition  which  is  op- 
posed to  works  of  science  by  proposing  for  its  im- 
mediate object  pleasure  and  not  truth."  In  com- 
paring the  poets  of  his  own  time  with  those  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  he  is  clear  in 
avowing  his  preference  for  the  former,  but  adds 
that  "  an  enviable  reputation  awaits  that  man  of 
genius  who  should  attempt  and  realize  a  union  of 
these  two  orders  of  verse." 

Much  of  the  "  Biographia  "  is  appropriated  to 
the  study  of  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth,  partly  by 
reason  of  the  personal  friendship  of  the  two  poets, 
but  mainly  because  he  conceived  that  herein  lay 
the  whole  discussion  as  to  the  true  theory  of  verse. 
He  insists  that  Wordsworth  is  wrong  in  his  main 
contention,  that  poetry  can  be  reduced  to  the  level 
of  the  common  people.  He  contends  that  the  lan- 
guage of  Milton  and  Shakespeare  is  far  more  the 
language  of  real  life  than  that  of  shepherds,  and 
that  Wordsworth  in  his  efforts  to  escape  the  stilted 


English  Literary  Criticism  101 

formalism  of  the  classical  school  had  passed  over 
to  the  more  dangerous  extreme  of  lowering  the 
level  of  poetic  expression  to  the  shop  and  market- 
place. 

Of  Coleridge's  celebrated  "  Lectures  on  Shake- 
speare and  the  Drama  "  we  cannot  write  at  length. 
No  longer  was  it  in  English  literature  an  open 
question  who  Shakespeare  was  and  where  he 
stood  among  his  poetic  colleagues ;  nor  did  any 
critic  have  to  assume  the  language  of  apology  in 
the  discussion  of  his  name  and  work.  Through 
his  own  study,  and  by  contact  with  the  best  minds 
of  Germany,  Coleridge  had  come  to  a  full  appreci- 
ation of  the  great  dramatist's  genius,  and  he  en- 
gaged in  no  work  that  gave  him  more  pleasure 
than  the  preparation  and  delivery  of  thess  lec- 
tures ;  nor  is  there  any  in  which  he  appears  to 
better  advantage  as  a  critic.  "  He  was  not  only  a 
great  poet,"  he  says,  "  but  a  great  philosopher." 
He  speaks  of  his  wit  and  imagination ;  defends  the 
essential  morality  of  his  plays ;  states  that  no  au- 
thor equals  him  in  using  the  language  of  nature.; 
notes  his  happy  combination  of  the  dramatic  and 
lyrical;  and  mentions  as  one  of  his  great  charac- 
teristics that  "  he  always  keeps  on  the  high  road 
of  life,"  far  above  the  commonplace.  He  sums  it 


102  General  Discussions 

all  up  by  saying  that  "  he  is  the  greatest  genius 
that  human  nature  has,  perhaps,  yet  produced,  our 
myriad-minded  Shakespeare."  It  is  in  this  con- 
nection that  he  lays  down  some  of  the  vital  prin- 
ciples of  criticism,  such  as  the  following:  that  the 
critic  must  distinguish  between  what  is  inward 
and  essential  and  what  is  circumstantial,  and  that 
he  must  ascertain  how  far  an  author  has  been  af- 
fected by  his  surroundings.  Apart  from  his 
Shakespeare  papers,  his  discussion  of  style  is 
noteworthy.  He  speaks  of  the  terse  style  of  Lat- 
imer's  time;  of  the  dignified  diction  of  the  Eliza- 
bethans; and  of  the  individual  idiom  of  the  pre- 
Restoration  authors.  From  the  current  view  of 
the  excellence  of  Augustan  English  he  dissents; 
praises  the  prose  of  Dryden  and  Jeremy  Taylor, 
and  remarks  of  Swift's  style  that  "  the  manner 
is  a  complete  expression  of  the  matter."  Of  John- 
son he  writes,  that  "  he  creates  an  impression  of 
cleverness  by  never  saying  anything  in  a  common 
way,"  Gibbon's  literary  manner  being  open  to  re- 
buke. On  style  in  general  he  offers  some  striking 
comments :  that  it  is  nothing  else  but  the  art  of 
conveying  the  meaning  "  appropriately  and  with 
perspicacity,"  and  that  writers  are  not  to  attempt 
to  express  themselves  in  language  "  before  they 


English  'Literary  Criticism  -103 

thoroughly  know  their  own  meaning."  "  The 
source  of  bad  writing,"  he  adds,  "  is  the  desire  to 
be  something  more  than  a  man  of  sense.  If  men 
would  only  say  what  they  have  to  say  in  plain 
terms,  how  much  more  eloquent  they  would  be, 
accuracy  of  style  being  near  akin  to  veracity." 
Such  was  Coleridge  as  a  literary  critic, —  always 
sensible,  honest,  and  reliable,  suggestive  and  stimu- 
lating, setting  the  faculties  of  his  readers  at  work, 
and  encouraging  them  to  independent  study. 

The  name  of  Coleridge  as  a  critic  cannot  be 
mentioned,  nor  the  new  critical  awakening  that  he 
represented  be  rightly  studied,  apart  from  a  refer- 
ence to  the  Edinburgh  Review  and  similar  organs 
of  critical  opinion.  Originating  at  the  opening  of 
the  century  —  the  Edinburgh,  in  1802;  the  Quar- 
terly, in  1809;  Blackwoocfs,  in  1817;  the  Westmin- 
ster, in  1824, —  the  history  of  these  Reviews  is  in- 
separably linked  with  that  of  Modern  English 
criticism.  They,  in  fact,  contain  a  substantive 
body  of  such  criticism.  Of  these,  the  Edinburgh 
is  the  first  in  date  and  influence,  and  especially  as 
related  to  Coleridge.  It  is  of  this  Review  that 
Coleridge  himself  writes :  "  It  has  a  claim  upon 
the  gratitude  of  the  literary  republic  for  having 
originated  the  scheme  of  reviewing  those  books 


104  General  Discussions 

only  which  are  susceptible  and  deserving  of  argu- 
mentative criticism."  It  was  this  new  method  of 
"  argumentative  criticism  "  that  marked  the  work 
of  Coleridge.  As  to  the  special  manner  in  which 
these  Reviews  were  conducted,  we  find  that  they 
all  erred  on  the  side  of  partial  and  extreme  criti- 
cism, going,  at  times,  to  the  limit  of  malice  and 
personal  ridicule.  Modern  criticism  was  just  be- 
ginning to  find  its  ground.  What  were  the  best 
principles  and  processes  of  literary  criticism  was 
as  yet  largely  an  open  question.  In  fine,  these 
initial  efforts  at  the  opening  of  the  century  were 
largely  experimental,  and  as  such  were  subject  to 
imperfection  and  needed  revision.  All  errors  con- 
ceded, however,  a  decided  advance  was  made  in 
the  critical  art.  The  critics  themselves  were  quick 
to  discern  their  own  mistakes  and  to  correct  them, 
so  that  by  the  close  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  cen- 
tury much  that  was  crude  had  been  eliminated  and 
stable  conditions  secured.  In  connection  with 
Coleridge  and  these  various  Review  editors  as 
prime  factors  in  this  earlier  critical  movement 
there  are  some  other  names  of  essential  import. 
One  is  Wordsworth,  who  in  the  Preface  to  his 
"  Lyrical  Ballads,"  published  in  1798,  had  newly 
awakened  the  critical  spirit  of  his  contemporaries, 


English  Literary  Criticism  105 

who  at  once  addressed  themselves  to  the  examina- 
tion of  his  "  Theory  of  Verse."  It  is  needless  to 
state  what  that  discussion  was  in  its  continuance 
and  evidence.  Even  Coleridge  felt  himself  obliged 
to  oppose  his  fellow-craftsmen  in  the  art  of  verse. 
Christopher  North,  in  his  "  Noctes  Ambrosianse," 
examined  the  literary  questions  of  the  day,  treat- 
ing them,  however,  with  so  deft  a  hand  as  to  make 
them  popular  and  impressive.  Lord  Byron,  in  his 
"  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers,"  sustains 
an  important  relation  to  this  critical  movement,  in 
that  it  was  the  furious  attack  of  the  Edinburgh 
Reviezv  upon  his  "  Hours  of  Idleness  "  that  pro- 
voked his  bitter  retort  and  opened  up  an  entirely 
new  chapter  in  his  literary  life.  It  is  clearly  seen, 
however,  that  Byron  was  out  of  his  element  in  the 
role  of  a  critic,  and  he  wisely  confined  himself  to 
other  and  more  promising  spheres.  William  Haz- 
litt  deserves  a  place  in  this  critical  list,  on  the 
ground  of  such  works  as  his  "  Lectures  on  the 
English  Poets,"  his  "  Characters  of  Shakespeare's 
Plays,"  and  his  "  Dramatic  Literature  of  the  Age 
of  Elizabeth."  His  discussions  of  Bacon  and  Tay- 
lor, of  ancient  and  modern  literature,  and  of  the 
German  drama,  are  all  in  the  line  of  the  later  and 
better  method.  Hallam,  in  his  "  Introduction  to 


106  General  Discussions 

the  Literature  of  Europe,"  has  placed  all  subse- 
quent criticism  under  obligations  to  -him  for  the 
use  of  the  comparative  method  in  literary  study, 
traversing,  as  he  has  done,  the  entire  circuit  of 
European  letters.  He  may  be  said  to  be  the  pio- 
neer in  this  historico-literary  method,  so  that  lit- 
erature proper  finds  ample  illustration  in  the  pages 
of  Froude  and  Lecky  and  Green  and  Freeman. 
Charles  Lamb,  in  his  "  Specimens  of  English  Dra- 
matic Poets"  and  "  Characters  of  Dramatic  Writ- 
ers," reveals  his  right  to  be  called  a  critic.  Macau- 
lay,  also,  must  have  place  here  in  the  province  of 
the  critical  essay,  as  a  literary  product.  His  paper 
on  Milton,  in  1825,  served  to  connect  English  crit- 
icism with  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and  justified  the 
claim  of  English  literature  in  having  already  es- 
tablished a  worthy  critical  record.  Macaulay's 
faults  as  a  critic  conceded,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
he  was  deferent  to  the  best  traditions  descending 
from  Johnson  and  Coleridge  and  substantially  fur- 
thered the  interests  of  English  literary  art  and 
taste. 

Here  belongs  the  name  of  De  Quincey,  whose 
death  in  1859  was  coincident  with  that  of  Macau- 
lay's.  In  his  "  Biographical  Sketches  "  and  "  His- 


English  Literary  Criticism  107 

torical  Sketches "  there  is  a  distinctive  critical 
method  and  spirit.  In  the  special  sphere  of  lit- 
erary discussion  he  is  most  at  home,  and  one  is  at 
a  loss  to  know  how  the  English  language  could 
be  used  to  better  effect  than  in  such  papers  as 
"  Greek  Tragedy,"  "  Wordsworth's  Poetry," 
"Rhetoric  and  Style,"  and  "Jean  Paul  Richter." 
"  No  English  writer,"  says  Masson,  "  has  left  a 
finer  body  of  disquisition  on  the  science  and  prin- 
ciples of  criticism  "  ;  and  no  English  writer,  we  may 
add,  has  more  successfully  exemplified  those  prin- 
ciples. Shelley,  in  his  unfinished  "  Defense  of 
Poetry,"  has  well-deserved  mention  among  our 
abler  critics.  Recalling  the  famous  critiques  of 
Sidney  and  Dry  den  on  the  same  subject,  it  vitally 
connects  the  nineteenth  century  with  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth.  He  defines  poetry  as  "  the  ex- 
pression of  the  imagination  " ;  holds  that  poets  are 
"  the  institutors  of  laws  and  the  founders  of  civil 
society  " ;  that  they  "  participate  in  the  eternal  and 
the  infinite " ;  that  "  poetry  is  ever  accompanied 
with  pleasure,"  and  that  it  is  essentially  moral  in 
effect;  and  he  closes  his  discussion  in  enthusiastic 
strain,  that  "  all  high  poetry  is  infinite,  the  cen- 
ter and  circumference  of  all  knowledge,"  the 


108  General  Discussions 

"  record  of  the  best  and  happiest  movements  of 
the  best  and  happiest  minds."  While  insisting 
that  the  world  might  live  on  in  peace  and  comfort 
had  the  philosophers  and  scientists  never  lived,  it 
could  not  live  without  the  poets.  These  are  just 
the  sentiments  we  should  expect  from  Shelley,  and 
it  is  more  than  a  pity  that  the  second  part  of  this 
subject  "  Defense  "  was  not  completed  at  his  un- 
timely death. 

It  is  thus  that  Coleridge  and  his  colleagues  did 
a  most  essential  work  in  the  cause  of  general  let- 
ters and  English  criticism,  enunciating  still  more 
clearly  the  fundamental  principles  of  criticism  and 
infusing  a  new  spirit  into  all  judicial  literary 
work.  This  was  the  best  result  of  Shelley's  labors, 
that  they  connected  criticism  as  a  science  with  lit- 
erature as  a  vital  product,  minimized  the  distance 
between  authorship  and  the  examination  of  author- 
ship, so  that,  as  we  stand  at  the  close  of  the  earlier 
modern  era,  in  1850,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  decided 
an  advance  English  criticism  has  made  since  the 
days  of  Dryden.  The  publication  of  Arnold's 
"  Essays  in  Criticism  "  brought  him  to  the  front 
of  the  criticism  of  his  time,  and  the  late-r  era  of 
Modern  English  criticism  was  fully  opened. 


English  Literary  Criticism  109 

THE    LATER    ERA THE    AGE    OF    ARNOLD 

A  study  of  the  critical  work  of  Matthew  Arnold 
as  related  to  that  of  Coleridge,  how  it  resembled 
it  and  how  it  differed  from  it,  would  be  a  subject 
of  the  deepest  interest  in  the  developing  history 
of  criticism.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  each  of  these 
great  authors  was  a  representative  English  critic 
in  the  age  to  which  he  respectively  belonged ;  that 
each  of  them  was  true  to  the  best  traditions  of  the 
older  schools  of  Dryden  and  Johnson;  that  each 
of  them  in  his  literary  personality  illustrated  the 
true  relation  of  authorship  to  criticism;  and  that 
each  of  them  made  such  decided  contributions  to 
the  cause  of  English  criticism  as  to  leave  it 
stronger  and  richer  than  he  found  it.  If  the  ele- 
ment of  difference  between  them  is  pressed,  it  may 
be  said  that  Coleridge  represented  the  philosoph- 
ical side  and  Arnold  the  aesthetic  side  of  critical 
work;  that  Coleridge  was  the  more  intellectual 
and  Arnold  the  more  literary ;  that  the  one  found 
the  best  province  for  his  effort  in  prose  and  the 
other  in  verse,  and  that  thus-  they  together  ex- 
pressed all  the  essential  elements  of  the  art. 
Though  Arnold  was  always  and  everywhere  a 
critic,  there  are  some  of  his  writings  that  espe- 


110  General  Discussions 

daily  mark  his  character  as  such ;  as,  his  "  Essay 
on  Translating  Homer,"  his  "  Essays  in  Criticism," 
"The  Study  of  Celtic  Literature,"  "Culture  and 
Anarchy,"  and  "  Discourses  in  America/'  in  each 
of  which  he  often  recurs  to  his  favorite  literary 
theories.  He  never  allows  the  reader  to  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  the  critic  must  be  a  thoroughly 
informed  man,  and  that  criticism,  rightly  viewed, 
is  a  high  and  serious  function.  It  is  only  in  the 
sphere  of  theological  discussion  that  he  belies 
any  of  these  essential  principles  and  evinces  both 
mental  and  literary  narrowness.  It  is  not  in  "  Lit- 
erature and  Dogma  "  and  "  God  and  the  Bible," 
but  in  the  study  of  poetry  and  prose,  that  this 
British  censor  finds  his  proper  province. 

To  cite  the  names  of  his  contemporaries  and 
successors  would  be,  in  a  sense,  to  pass  in  review 
the  entire  content  of  later  Victorian  letters,  em- 
phasizing such  names  as  Ruskin,  Landor,  Carlyle, 
and  Pater.  Mention  has  been  made  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  earlier  modern  school  to  the  rise  of  the 
Edinburgh  and  similar  Reviews  as  organs  of  crit- 
ical opinions.  It  is  significant  that  in  the  later 
school  the  same  kind  of  criticism  appears,  and  we 
note  the  beginning  of  the  Fortnightly,  the  Con- 
temporary, and  the  Nineteenth  Century,  while  it  is 


English  Liter  any  Criticism  111 

not  aside  from  truth  to  say  that  English  literary 
criticism  has  marked  steady  progress  since  Cole- 
ridge and  Arnold,  down  to  the  contemporary  work 
of  Morley  and  Dowden  and  Bagehot.  The  opti- 
mistic spirit  with  which  Shelley  closes  his  "  De- 
fense of  Poetry "  may  well  characterize  the  lit- 
erary student  as  he  sits  down  to  a  candid  exami- 
nation of  our  critical  development  as  the  twen- 
tieth century  opens  up  before  him. 


BRITISH  POET  LAUREATES 

IT  is,  of  course,  natural  to  look  outside  of  Eng- 
land and  to  a  period  prior  to  the  establishment  of 
English  literature  as  national  for  the  origin  and 
earliest  bestowals  of  this  historic  literary  honor 
of  the  laureateship.  As  has  been  said,  "  The  cus- 
tom of  crowning  poets  is  as  ancient  as  poetry  it- 
self," to  which  it  may  be  added  that  the  custom 
of  honoring  authors  in  prose  or  verse,  or  those 
distinguished  in  general  letters  or  in  some  partic- 
ular branch  of  scholarship  and  liberal  learning,  is 
as  old  as  literature  and  education.  Hence,  it  is 
appropriate  to  find  the  earlier  and  later  institution 
of  such  honors  connected  with  the  universities  of 
Europe,  "  France  being  the  only  country  in  Medi- 
aeval Europe  in  which  the  title  was  not  known." 
As  far  back  as  the  thirteenth  century,  Bachelors 
and  Doctors  on  receiving  their  degrees  and  titles 
from  the  universities  were  crowned  with  the 
laurel,  this  custom  still  obtaining  in  Europe.  As 
Morley  tells  us,  "  Tradition  of  the  Middle  Ages 
112 


British  Poet  Laureates  113 

held  that  Vergil,  Horace,  and  Statins  had  been  so 
crowned,  and  that  it  was  a  custom  dropped  out 
of  use  by  decay  of  the  Roman  Empire,  but  which 
had  been  revived  in  the  thirteenth  century."  It 
was  at  this  era,  in  connection  with  the  revival  of 
learning  and  literature  in  Southern  Europe,  and  at 
the  time  of  Petrarch,  more  particularly,  that  the 
more  modern  type  of  this  honor  was  instituted 
in  the  person  of  Petrarch  himself,  "  who  first 
gave  life  to  the  office  of  Poet  Laureate."  It  is 
highly  significant  that  the  state  and  the  university 
were  both  represented  in  this  bestowal,  the  Roman 
Senate  summoning  Petrarch  to  Rome,  in  Septem- 
ber, 1340,  and  the  Chancellor  of  the  University  of 
Paris  summoning  him  to  Paris,  at  the  same  time, 
to  be  publicly  crowned.  It  is  thus  a  matter  of 
record  that  this  great  Italian  author,  after  sub- 
mitting himself  to  a  rigid  public  trial  before  King 
Robert  of  Naples,  was  solemnly  crowned  Poeta 
Laureatus  by  the  king,  April  8,  1341.  The  honor 
was  a  tribute  to  him  both  as  a  poet  and  an  his- 
torian, and  he  became  thereby  a  citizen  of  Rome. 
At  no  period  since  that  date  has  the  honor  been 
more  worthily  bestowed  nor  has  it  ever  been  at- 
tended with  more  fitting  and  impressive  ceremony. 
It  is  probably  to  this  imposing  and  merited  cor- 


114  'General  Discussions 

onation  that  Chaucer  refers  in  his  Prologue  to  the 
"  Clerk's  Tale,"  as  he  writes : — 

"  Fraunces  Petrarck,  the  laureat  poete, 
HightS  [was  called]  this  clerk,  whos  rethorique  swete 
Enlumyned  al  Ytaille  of  poetrie." 

The  wide  scope  of  the  office  and  honor  is  indi- 
cated as  we  read  the  language  of  the  gift  — "  grant- 
ing him,  in  the  poetic  as  well  as  in  the  historic 
art,  and  generally  in  whatever  relates  to  the  said 
arts,  the  free  and  entire  power  of  reading,  dis- 
puting and  interpreting  all  ancient  books,  to  make 
new  ones,  and  compose  poems,  which,  God  assist- 
ing, shall  endure  from  age  to  age."  Such  condi- 
tions as  these  are  a  credit  alike  to  the  Roman  Sen- 
ate and  King  Robert  of  Naples,  to  the  poet  him- 
self and  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  We  are  now 
prepared  to  note  the  rise  and  history  of  this  of- 
fice as  obtaining  in  England  proper.  Here,  as  on 
the  Continent,  the  civil  and  the  literary  are  alike 
represented.  The  honor  is,  in  one  sense,  a  politi- 
cal one,  as  conferred  by  the  king  or  queen,  and  a 
literary  and  an  educational  one,  as  connected  with 
the  universities.  As  it  seems,  the  laurel  was  first 
given  by  the  English  universities  to  students  ex- 
celling in  rhetoric  and-  poetics.  As  one  states  it, 
"  The  king's  laureate  was  simply  a  graduated 


British  Poet  Laureates  115 

rhetorician  in  the  service  of  the  king."  The  honor 
was  thus  conferred  not  exclusively  on  the  basis 
of  poetic  merit  or  skill  in  versification,  but  on  the 
ground  of  general  literary  merit.  Required,  at 
first,  to  compose  appropriate  odes  in  honor  of  the 
sovereign's  birthday,  or  the  nation's  victories,  or 
some  similar  civic  event,  these  specified  duties  at 
length  became  a  dead  letter  and  the  incumbent 
was  at  liberty,  in  his  own  time  and  in  his  own 
way,  to  fulfil  the  obligations  of  his  trust.  As  to 
English  poets  who  have  held  this  office,  there  must 
be  more  or  less  conjecture,  dependent,  in  part,  upon 
the  particular  meaning  assigned  to  the  title.  Thus 
Chaucer  and  Gower  are  said  to  be 

"  Superlative  as  poetes  laureate 
In   rhetorique  and  eloquence  ornate." 

In  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  Henry  Sco- 
gan,  to  whom  Chaucer  addressed  one  of  his  poems, 
is  mentioned  by  Jonson  as  one  who  "  writ  in 
ballad-royal."  In  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Fourth, 
John  Kay(e)  is  called  the  "  versificator "  of  the 
king,  supposed  by  some  critics  to  have  been  the 
first  English  laureate  in  any  well-understood  sense. 
He  calls  himself  "  humble  poet  laureate."  Andre 
Bernard,  of  the  time  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  is  said 
to  have  been  "  the  first  man  whom  an  English  king 


116  General  Discussions 

named  as  his  poet  laureate."  John  Skelton,  who 
is  proud  to  call  himself  "  Poeta  Skelton  Laureat- 
us,"  was  poet  laureate  of  Oxford  and  of  Cam- 
bridge. Of  one  Robert  Whittington,  an  Oxford 
graduate,  we  read  that  he  applied,  in  1513,  for  the 
degree  of  Laureate  on  the  ground  that  he  had  spent 
several  years  in  the  study  and  teaching  of  rhet- 
oric, and  that  his  request  was  granted.  He  was 
said  to  have  been  "  the  last  man  who  received  a 
rhetorical  degree  at  Oxford."  In  all  these  cases 
it  will  be  noticed  that  the  term  "  laureate  "  is  used 
with  considerable  latitude,  applying  both  to  prose 
and  verse,  to  literature  and  education,  "  the  pres- 
ent dynasty  of  poet-kings "  beginning,  according 
to  Shaw,  with  Edmund  Spenser,  who,  in  1591, 
was  pensioned  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  who  in 
one  of  his  sonnets  refers  to  the  "  laurel  leaf  "  as 
"  the  badge  that  I  doe  bear."  Spenser  seems  to  have 
held  this  office  till  1599,  being  followed  by  Samuel 
Daniel,  who,  in  1619,  was  followed  by  Ben  Jonson, 
"  the  first  who  received  formal  letters-patent  ap- 
pointing him  to  the  office."  All  preceding  incum- 
bents were  known  as  volunteer  laureates.  It  was 
at  this  time  that  the  yearly  allowance  to  the  lau- 
reate seems  to  have  been  fixed  at  a  hundred  marks, 
and  varied  during  Jonson's  incumbency  to  a  hun- 


British  Poet  Laureates  117 

dred  pounds  sterling  and  a  tierce  of  wine.  In  the 
days  of  Pye  and  Southey,  this  grant  of  wine  seems 
to  have  been  changed  into  that  of  money,  equal- 
ing twenty-seven  pounds  a  year.  The  pension  of 
fifty  pounds  a  year  given  to  Spenser  by  the  Queen 
in  1591  may  have  been  given  him,  in  part,  at  least, 
as  a  poet  of  her  reign  and  court. 

At  the  close  of  Jonson's  office  as  laureate,  in 
1637,  there  seems  to  have  been  an  unfilled  inter- 
val of  twenty-three  years,  till  the  appointment  of 
William  Davenant,  in  1660,  the  year  of  the  Res- 
toration of  Charles  the  Second  and  the  incoming 
of  Gallic  influence.  Davenant  was  succeeded,  in 
1670,  by  John  Dryden,  though  it  appears  that  Dry- 
den  was  the  recipient  of  the  yearly  salary  of  a 
laureate  from  1668  to  the  close  of  his  term  in 
1689.  His  long  poem  "  Annus  Mirabilis,"  written 
to  commemorate  the  startling  events  of  the  pre- 
ceding year  —  the  Great  Plague  and  the  Great 
Fire  and  the  war  with  the  Dutch  —  was  naturally 
the  occasion  for  an  excessive  eulogium  of  the 
King,  and  of  the  nation  at  large,  as  a  conquering 
naval  power.  His  "  Astrsea  Redux  " — "A  Poem 
on  the  Happy  Restoration  and  Return  of  His 
Sacred  Majesty,  Charles  the  Second  " —  is  suffi- 
cient to  show  to  what  depths  of  base  servility  a 


118  General  Discussions 

dependent  author  may  stoop.  So,  his  "  Heroic 
Stanzas  "  to  Cromwell,  written  in  a  less  objection- 
able strain,  prepared  the  way  for  his  work  as  a 
laureate  and,  indeed,  contributed  to  his  appoint- 
ment. His  elegy,  "  Threnodia  Augustalis,"  was 
written  on  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second.  His 
"  Britannia  Rediviva,"  composed  on  the  birth  of 
a  son  to  James  the  Second,  is  a  good  example  of 
a  distinctive  laureate  poem,  though  his  honors  and 
emoluments  were  soon  all  lost  by  the  banishment 
of  James  and  by  the  accession  of  William.  From 
Dryden's  incumbency  on  for  a  century  and  a  quar- 
ter, to  the  year  1813,  we  note  such  names  in  the 
laureateship  as  Shadwell,  Tate,  Rowe,  Eusden, 
Cibber,  Whitehead,  Thomas  Warton,  and  Pye, — 
a  list,  as  Shaw  indicates,  which  "  will  awaken 
strange  reflections  as  to  the  wisdom  shown  by 
English  rulers  in  their  choice  of  literary  monarchs." 
"  '  The  bays,'  as  it  was  said,  '  became  a  sure  badge 
of  mediocrity.'  "  Shadwell  is  chiefly  known  as  the 
hero  of  Dryden's  "  Mac  Flecknoe  " ;  Tate,  as  con- 
joint editor  with  Brady  of  "  The  Psalms  of  Da- 
vid " ;  Rowe,  as  one  of  the  earlier  editors  of 
Shakespeare ;  Eusden,  as  one  of  the  victims  of  the 
satire  of  "  The  Dunciad  " ;  Cibber,  as  a  dramatic 
writer  and  an  actor;  Whitehead,  as  the  author  of 


British  Poet  Laureates  119 

unread  poems ;  Warton,  as  the  author  of  a  "  His- 
tory of  English  Poetry,"  and  Pye,  as  the  author 
of  "Alfred,"  called  by  accommodation  an  epic. 
Rowe  and  Warton  excepted,  there  is  no  name  here 
indicative  of  more  than  ordinary  talent  either  in 
literature  or  general  culture. 

The  appointment  of  Robert  Southey  in  1813 
(the  offer  of  the  honor  having  been  declined  by 
Scott)  may  be  said  to  have  given  new  character 
to  the  office  and  to  the  honor,  his  retention  of  the 
laureateship  for  thirty  years  down  to  his  death 
serving  to  show  his  acceptability  at  the  courts  of 
four  successive  sovereigns, —  George  the  Third, 
George  the  Fourth,  William  the  Fourth,  and  Vic- 
toria. Indeed,  his  extreme  adulation  of  the  reign- 
ing powers  reminds  us  too  often  of  the  servility  of 
Dryden  at  his  worst.  What  has  well  been  called 
"  his  deification  and  beatification  "  of  George  the 
Third  exposed  him  to  the  merciless  attacks  of 
Byron  and  the  critics.  This  ill-timed  and  almost 
blasphemous  tribute  is  given  in  "  The  Vision  of 
Judgment,"  a  poem  on  the  death  of  George  the 
Third  and  his  reception  in  Heaven. 

In  such  an  ode  as  his  "  Carmen  Triumphale  "  he 
appears  at  better  advantage  than  in  the  "  official 
lyrics  "  of  the  court.  His  "  Battle  of  Blenheim," 


120  General  Discussions 

in  which  he  celebrates  the  victory  of  the  English 
over  the  French,  is  of  a  genuine  martial  order. 

In  1843,  Wordsworth  was  honored  with  the 
laureateship  and,  also,  honored  it  till  the  date  of 
his  death  in  1850,  an  English  laureate  who,  in  a 
true  sense,  first  fully  magnified  his  office  and, 
while  true  to  his  sovereign  and  the  nation,  also 
maintained  his  own  dignity  and  independence  and 
wrote  what  he  wrote  as  an  author  and  a  man, 
rather  than  as  a  dependent  of  the  court.  He  ac- 
cepted the  honor  on  the  condition  that  no  official 
verses  should  be  required  of  him.  A  comparison 
of  Wordsworth's  ode  "  On  the  Death  of  George 
the  Third "  with  Southey's  on  the  same  theme  is 
sufficient  to  mark  the  difference  between  literary 
independence  and  servility ;  between  natural  po- 
etry and  verses  made  to  order.  Indeed,  it  may 
safely  be  said  of  Wordsworth  that  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  laureateship  made  no  apparent  differ- 
ence whatsoever  in  his  attitude  to  the  Victorian 
court  or  the  nation  at  large,  nor  did  he,  in  fact,  go 
out  of  his  way  to  pen  odes  and  sonnets  simply  as 
a  laureate.  His  sonnets,  as  their  title  tells  us, 
were  dedicated  to  Liberty  and  to  the  cause  of 
truth,  rather  than  to  this  or  that  personage  or 
specific  national  event. 


British  Poet  Laureates  121 

i 

At  the  death  of  Wordsworth,  in  1850,  Alfred 
Tennyson  was  in  the  vigor  of  his  middle  manhood 
and  his  poetic  fame,  this  being  the  year  of  the 
publication  of  "  In  Memoriam."  Several  years 
prior  to  this,  as  we  learn  from  the  poet's  latest 
biography,  Hallam,  the  historian,  had  called  the 
attention  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  to  Tennyson's  superi- 
or merit  and  his  need  of  official  aid,  with  the  result 
that,  in  1848,  he  received  an  annuity  of  two  hun- 
dred pounds  "  as  a  mark  of  royal  favor  to  one  who 
had  devoted  to  worthy  objects  great  intellectual 
powers."  In  1850  the  laureateship  was  offered 
him,  mainly,  as  we  learn,  on  the  basis  of  his  "  In 
Memoriam,"  which  so  appealed  to  the  Prince  Con- 
sort and  the  Queen.  The  language  of  the  Queen's 
Secretary  in  the  proffer  of  the  office  is  full  of  in- 
terest as  it  reads :  '  The  ancient  duties  of  this 
office,  which  consisted  of  laudatory  odes  to  the 
sovereign,  have  been  long  in  abeyance,  and  have 
never  been  called  for  during  the  reign  of  her 
present  Majesty.  The  queen,  however,  has  been 
anxious  that  the  office  should  be  maintained ;  first, 
on  account  of  its  antiquity,  and,  secondly,  because 
it  establishes  a  connection,  through  her  household, 
between  her  Majesty  and  the  poets  of  this  country 
as  a  body." 


122  General  Discussions 

i 
Though  Tennyson  for  various  reasons  hesitated 

in  accepting  the  honor,  he  at  length  assented,  and 
to  the  year  of  his  death,  in  1892,  gave  the  office 
historic  repute,  opening  his  work  as  laureate  in 
1851  by  the  dedication  of  his  poems  to  the  Queen, 
and,  in  1852,  with  his  "  Ode  on  the  Death  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,"  followed,  as  it  was,  by  the 
dedication  of  the  "  Idylls  "  to  Prince  Albert  and 
by  his  "  Welcome  to  Alexandra."  As  in  the  case 
of  Wordsworth,  his  "  official  verses  "  were  purely 
voluntary.  His  gracious  tribute  to  Wordsworth, 
on  receiving  his  appointment,  is  onfe  of  the  pleas- 
antest  surprises  of  literature,  as  he  wrote : — 

"  The  laurel  greener  from  the  brow 
Of  him  who  uttered  nothing  base." 

Such  examples  as  his  "  Charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade,"  "The  Defence  of  Lucknow,"  and  "A 
Ballad  of  the  Fleet,"  while  not  technically  laureate 
poems,  are  of  this  commemorative  order. 

At  the  death  of  Tennyson  the  question  of  the 
maintenance  of  the  laureateship  was  opened  by  the 
English  public,  there  being  no  living  author,  in  the 
judgment  of  many,  worthy  to  receive  the  laurel  from 
his  brow.  To  Morris  and-  Swinburne  alike,  serious 
objections  were  raised  and  on  other  than  literary 


British  Poet  Laureates  123 

grounds,  nor  was  the  enthusiasm  of-  the  public 
aroused  by  the  name  of  Edwin  Arnold.  To  Wil- 
liam Watson  and  Alfred  Austin  the  eyes  of  many 
were  turned,  and  yet  in  neither  case  did  all  the 
conditions  of  such  a  function  seem  to  be  met.  Each 
of  them  was  all  but  too  willing  to  acknowledge 
himself  a  disciple  of  the  departed  master  and  un- 
worthy to  follow  in  his  footsteps.  Each  of  them 
had  paid  fitting  tribute  to  his  memory,  in  their 
respective  elegies  and  eulogies,  "  Lachrymse  Mu- 
sarum  "  and  "  To  Lord  Tennyson."  The  difficulty 
was  finally  settled  by  the  appointment  in  1896  of 
the  poet  Austin,  only  to  elicit  from  most  English- 
speaking  circles  a  temporary  protest.  In  the  view 
of  some,  however,  the  honor  was  well  bestowed, 
it  being  as  illogical,  they  averred,  "  to  demand 
that  every  laureate  be  as  great  a  poet  as  Tenny- 
son as  to  insist  that  no  man  less  than  Alfred  shall 
be  king." 

No  sooner  had  the  appointment  been  made  and 
accepted  than  the  newly  inducted  laureate  nat- 
urally became  the  study  of  critics  and  the  general 
English  world  as  to  his  personality,  poetic  prod- 
uct, and  possible  future.  When  it  was  said,  at  the 
time  "  that  he  is  at  once  a  live  poet  and  a  true 
Englishman;  in  perfect  accord  with  his  govern- 


124:  General  Discussions 

ment  and  the  conservative  traditions  thereof;  that 
he  is  sound,  safe  and  of  high  character  as  man 
and  artist;  and  that  nothing  that  he  has  written 
or  is  expected  to  write  will  ever  tend  to  debase 
the  true  moral  or  intellectual  taste  of  English 
reading  people,"  enough  was  said,  perhaps,  to 
justify  his  selection  and  to  insure  for  him  an  ever 
more  generous  criticism  and  indorsement.  His 
ardent  tribute  to  his  sovereign  in  his  eulogy  "  Vic- 
toria, the  Good  "  reminds  us  not  a  little  of  Ten- 
nyson's stanzas  "  To  the  Queen,"  as  we  read : — 

"  She  shared  her  subjects'  bane  and  bliss, 
Welcomed  the  wise,  the  base  withstood, 
And  taught  by  her  clear  life  it  is 
The  greatest  greatness  to  be  good." 

A  writer  both  of  prose  and  verse,  it  is  somewhat 
anomalous  that  he,  for  a  time,  worked  quite  ex- 
clusively within  the  sphere  of  prose,  thus  depart- 
ing widely  from  the  traditional  functions  of  the 
laureate,  as  an  author  in  verse.  The  fifteenth  of- 
ficially appointed  English  laureate,  he  did  some- 
thing, at  least,  to  sustain  the  goodly  succession 
from  Ben  Jonson  down,  and  unite  the  twentieth 
century  of  English  letters  and  the  reigns  of  Ed- 
ward the  Seventh  and  George  the  Fifth  with  "  the 
spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth." 


British  Poet  Laureates  125 

The  fervent  affection  which  Tennyson  and  Aus- 
tin alike  have  expressed  for  Wordsworth  and  his 
verse  is  enough  in  itself  to  link  their  names  in  the 
grateful  regard  of  every  English-speaking  people 
and  hallow  the  office  of  the  English  laureateship. 
Upon  the  death  of  Alfred  Austin,  literary  curios- 
ity was  again  excited  as  to  whether  the  laureate- 
ship  would  be  allowed  to  pass  into  abeyance,  or 
if  not,  upon  whom  the  traditional  honor  might  be 
conferred,  the  poet,  prose  writer,  and  critic,  Robert 
Bridges,  receiving  the  appointment. 


PART  SECOND 
SPECIAL  DISCUSSIONS 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  GENIUS 

THE  definition  of  genius  is  almost  as  diversified 
as  is  the  personality  of  men  of  genius  or  that  of 
leading  literary  critics.  Just  because  in  its  charac- 
teristics and  expression  it  is  a  something  thor- 
oughly unique,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  reduce  it 
to  an  exact  statement.  Hence,  the  variety  of  view 
that  we  find.  According  to  Johnson,  "  a  genius 
is  a  mind  of  large  general  powers  accidentally  de- 
termined to  some  particular  direction."  In  Schle- 
gel's  view,  it  is  "  the  almost  unconscious  choice  of 
the  highest  degree  of  excellence."  "  To  believe 
your  own  thought,"  says  Emerson,  "  to  believe 
that  what  is  true  for  you  is  true  for  all  men,  this 
is  genius  " ;  while  the  French  critic  Cousin  states  it 
thus :  "  The  rapid  and  vivid  perception  of  the  pro- 
portion in  which  the  ideal  and  the  real  should  be 
united."  In  these  and  similar  declarations  there 
are  enough  common  features  to  cast  some  clear 
light  on  the  nature  of  genius,  and  yet  enough  dif- 
ferences to  leave  the  subject  open  to  the  judgment 
129 


130  Special  Discussions 

of  the  individual  student.  For  our  purpose  and  as 
applicable  to  Shakespeare,  genius  may  be  said  to 
be  the  possession  of  extraordinary  gifts  and  powers 
and  the  ability  to  utilize  them  in  extraordinary 
forms.  However  specific  and  personal  the  genius 
of  Dante  or  Homer  or  Milton  or  Shakespeare  may 
be,  as  determined  by  heredity  and  environment, 
they  were  alike  in  this,  that  they  possessed  ex- 
traordinary faculty  and  function.  Nor  is  it  to  be 
forgotten  that  genius,  because  it  is  unique  and 
original,  must  have  a  much  wider  area  of  liberty 
than  ordinary  mental  power  —  must  be,  at  times, 
a  law  unto  itself  and  consistently  transgress  or 
ignore  established  law.  Herein  lies  the  main  dis- 
tinction between  genius  and  talent ;  between  cre- 
ative and  mere  constructive  ability ;  between  excep- 
tional and  average  faculty.  We  are  now  prepared 
to  note  the  specific  elements  of  Shakespeare's 
genius,  —  more  especially,  as  evinced  in  the  sphere 
of  the  drama.  As  it  was  here  that  he  was  eminent, 
it  is  here  that  he  is  to  be  studied  and  estimated. 

1.  A  profound  knowledge  of  man  and  men:  of 
man  in  the  abstract  as  involving  a  study  of  human 
nature  in  general,  and  of  men  in  their  concrete  in- 
dividuality, national  and  personal.  He  believed, 
with  Pope,  that  "  the  proper  study  of  mankind  is 


Elements  of  Shakespeare's  Genius         131 

man,"  that  literature  and  life  were  to  be  mutual 
interpreters.  In  the  Historical  Plays,  we  have  an 
expression  of  this  knowledge  which  is  objective 
and  visible,  and  character  is  revealed  through 
some  incident,  event,  or  action.  In  the  Tragedies 
and  Comedies,  this  knowledge  is  more  interior  and 
acute.  Motives,  dispositions,  mental  and  moral 
qualities,  are  examined.  In  fine,  the  psychology 
of  human  nature  is  now  studied.  In  his  Sonnets, 
this  particular  type  of  study  becomes  still  more  in- 
trospective, inasmuch  as  the  autobiographical  ele- 
ment enters  to  color  and  intensify  it.  When  it  is 
said  by  Sprague  that  "  he  looked  creation  through," 
the  reference  is  not  merely  to  his  observation  of 
external  phenomena,  but  to  his  study  of  subjective 
life.  It  was  an  outlook  and  an  inlook,  and  these 
together,  so  that  the  result  was  a  thorough  and 
comprehensive  examination  of  men  and  the  world. 
First  and  last,  Shakespeare  was  an  interpreter  of 
man  to  man,  a  mediator  of  the  truth. 

2.  A  knowledge  of  truth  as  truth,  in  addition 
to  a  knowledge  of  it  in  its  relations  and  applica- 
tions. To  inferior  and  even  to  average  minds 
truth,  to  be  seen  at  all,  must  be  presented  under 
certain  well-established  forms,  in  current,  conven- 
tional ways.  Shakespeare  looked  at  truth  directly 


132  Special  Discussions 

and  immediately.  As  a  writer  has  expressed  it, 
"  He  thought  in  the  lump,"  and  not  through  the 
medium  of  detached  statements  and  formal  com- 
parisons. He  was  conversant  with  what  is.  called 
a  body  of  truth,  truth  in  its  essence  and  entity,  as 
the  sum-total  of  human  thinking  and  experience. 
Hence  the  "  immense  suggestiveness  "  of  the  po- 
etry of  Shakespeare,  meaning  so  much  more  than 
it  affirms,  thus  inviting  and  rewarding  investiga- 
tion, as  fresh  now  as  when  first  penned,  and  in- 
sured beyond  the  possibility  of  decline.  When 
Schlegel  tells  us  that  "  in  profundity  of  view  he 
was  a  prophet/'  there  is  a  reference  to  this  pen- 
etrating vision  which  the  great  dramatist  had  of 
essential  truth  and  verities,  so  that  he  was  not  and 
could  not  be  superficial.  He  saw  truth  and  life 
"  steadily  and  saw  it  whole." 

3.  Mental  Affluence  and  Versatility.  It  is  with 
the  many-sided  and  myriad-minded  poet  that  we 
are  here  dealing.  Nor  is  it  simply  meant  that 
Shakespeare  wrote  so  many  sonnets  and  plays. 
Other  English  authors  have  written  more  in  verse 
and  prose.  His  versatility  was  mental  rather  than 
literary,  capable  of  producing  vastly  more  than  it 
did,  had  the  occasion  demanded  it.  His  affluence 
was  a  latent  resourcefulness,  equal  to  any  call  that 


Elements  of  Shakespeare's  Genius         133 

might  be  made  upon  it.  The  Elizabethan  dramatist 
Webster  speaks  of  "  his  happy  and  copious  in- 
dustry." His  intellectual  ability  was  copious,  full 
of  cumulative  power,  of  which,  after  every  exer- 
cise of  it,  a  surplus  always  survived,  as  the  guar- 
antee of  renewed  expression.  Hence  we  fail  to 
discover  in  Shakespeare's  mental  personality  the 
ordinary  evidences  of  limitation  and  diminishing 
resources.  He  was  a  kind  of  general  specialist, 
taking,  as  Bacon  would  say,  all  truth  and  knowl- 
edge for  his  province,  his  purpose  being  the  intel- 
lectual expansion  of  his  fellows. 

One  of  the  best  tests  and  evidences  of  this  in- 
tellectual affluence  is  found  when  we  inquire, 
Where  was  Shakespeare  the  ablest?  What  was  his 
forte?  Was  it  in  tragedy  or  comedy?  Was  it  in 
conception  or  construction  of  plot  or  in  the  sphere 
of  characterization?  These  are  still  unsettled  ques- 
tions and  defy  final  solution.  The  fact  is,  his 
power  was  so  general  and  central  and  symmet- 
rically developed  that  he  was  confessedly  conspic- 
uous in  no  one  feature  above  another,  the  only 
exception  being  that  in  his  lyric  poetry  he  is  not 
as  great  as  in  his  dramatic  verse.  In  this  mental 
affluence  is  also  explained  the  fact  that  the  study  of 
the  Shakespearean  drama  is  one  of  the  highest 


134  Special  Discussions 

forms  of  mental  discipline,  and  he  who  approaches 
it  in  any  other  spirit  fails  to  approach  it  aright.  A 
mere  drawing-room  acquaintance  or  aesthetic  co- 
quetting with  such  productions  as  "  Hamlet  "  and 
"  Othello  "  is  one  thing.  A  study  or  mastery  of 
them  is  another.  If  the  modern  stage  cannot  pre- 
sent and  maintain  this  old  Shakespearean  drama, 
so  much  the  worse  for  it  and  for  the  public  to 
which  it  appeals  and  on  whom  it  relies  for  patron- 
age and  stimulus.  This  fact  is  itself  a  tribute  to 
the  great  dramatist's  work,  as  the  product  of  a 
master-mind  and  requiring  a  good  degree  of  men- 
tal vigor  and  literary  culture  on  the  part  of  the 
modern  public. 

4.  The  imagination  of  Shakespeare  is  to  be 
studied.  The  "  vision  and  faculty  divine  "  was  his, 
one  of  the  marks  of  genius  being  that  it  is,  on  the 
imaginative  side,  both  a  vision  and  a  faculty.  One 
of  the  main  features  of  Shakespeare's  imagination 
is  seen  in  the  fact  that  it  expressed  itself  in  no  one 
exclusive  form,  philosophic,  historic,  or  poetic,  but 
in  all  of  them  conjointly,  as  with  Homer  and  Dante 
and  Milton.  Of  Chaucer  and  Spenser  and  Pope 
and  Wordsworth  this  cannot  be  affirmed,  nor  of 
any  but  the  few  world-poets.  There  was  in  his 
imagination  at  its  highest  the  union  of  the  natural 


Elements  of  Shakespeare's  Genius          13f> 

and  supra-natural,  the  real  and  the  ideal,  the  pres- 
ent and  the  future,  in  such  wise  as  to  give  to  each 
its  proper  place  and  make  the  fusion  all  the  more 
effective.  He  had  thus  the  high  inventive  func- 
tions of  the  poet,  "  bodying  forth  the  form  of 
things  unknown  "  and  "  giving  to  airy  nothing  a 
local  habitation  and  a  name."  At  times,  he  was 
excursive  and  descriptive,  his  eye'  "  with  a  fine 
frenzy  rolling"  through  all  space  and  time.  He 
was  thus  the  greatest  seer  of  English  verse,  pre- 
senting and  re-presenting  truth  as  he  saw  it  in 
earth  and  heaven,  in  man  and  nature,  in  history 
and  romance.  Hence,  the  reality  and  ideality  of 
his  plays,  realistic  and  romantic  in  one,  their  basis 
laid  in  truth  and  fact,  and  their  superstructure 
rising  to  mid-heaven.  Striking  examples  of  figur- 
ative usage  are  thus  seen  in  such  an  historic  drama 
as  "  Julius  Caesar,"  as  examples  of  historic  fact  are 
found  in  such  a  comedy  as  "  The  Merchant  of 
Venice  "  or  such  a  romance  as  "  A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream." 

5.  Pathos  and  passion  are  notable  elements. 
The  phrase  "  an  impassioned  imagination  "  is  here 
in  place,  and  expresses  a  radical  principle  that  true 
feeling  may  be  awakened  and  sustained,  as  it  may 
be  allayed  and  repressed,  by  the  direct  action  of 


1.36  Special  Discussions 

the  imagination.  Pity  is  engendered  by  holding 
up  the  object  of  pity  clearly  before  the  eye  of  the 
mind  as  a  present  reality.  So  love  and  hate, 
friendship  and  patriotism  and  religious  zeal,  are 
awakened.  The  mental  picture  which  the  Crusad- 
ers formed  of  the  Cross  and  the  indignities  to 
which  it  was  subjected  at  the  hands  of  infidels 
filled  the  armies  of  Europe  with  soldiers  eager  to 
avenge  the  repeated  insult.  In  Shakespeare  we 
naturally  look  for  such  an  emotive  element,  as  true 
genius  never  violates  a  fundamental  law,  nor 
omits  to  emphasize  a  normal  principle  of  human 
nature.  What  especially  marks  the  Shakespearean 
passion  is,  that  it  is  an  integral  portion  of  the  play 
in  which  it  is  present  and  is  always  under  the  con- 
trol of  reason,  good  sense,  and  the  central  object 
of  the  play.  In  the  most  intense  passages  of  the 
tragedies  this  is  as  true  as  in  the  more  subdued 
and  restrained  utterances.  Lear  and  Hamlet  may 
be  mad,  but  Shakespeare  never.  Timon,  the  mis- 
anthrope, may  curse  his  birth  and  the  world  in 
truly  pessimistic  strain,  but  Shakespeare  always 
preserves  his  serenity.  His  verse  is  thus,  indeed, 
an  inspiration,  an  embodiment  of  genuine  senti- 
ment, whether  expressed  in  the  quieter  form  of 


Elements  of  Shakespeare's  Genius         137 

pathos  or  in  the  more  demonstrative  outbursts  of 
tragic  passion. 

6.  His  twofold  relation  to  his  characters.  On 
the  one  hand,  he  succeeds  in  identifying  himself 
with  them,  while,  on  the  other,  he.  preserves,  in- 
tact and  distinct,  his  own  poetic  and  human  per- 
sonality. When  reading  such  an  interpretation  of 
character  as  is  Shylock  or  Wolsey,  the  hand  of 
Shakespeare  is  manifest  in  all,  and  yet  thoroughly 
concealed,  in  so  far  as  to  interfere  in  any  way  with 
the  full  expression  of  the  character  itself.  The 
Jew  and  the  king's  cardinal  are  themselves  in  the 
drama,  and  yet  the  poet  gives  us,  in  his  own  way, 
his  personal  estimate  of  such  a  vice  as  avarice  or 
unrestrained  political  ambition.  His  characters 
are  thus  great  generic  types.  They  are  not  only 
personal  characters,  but  corporate  and  collective, 
representative  of  a  class  of  men  and  principles  or 
of  abstract  virtues  and  vices,  a  kind  of  generali- 
zation in  verse  of  that  study  of  separate  traits  and 
tendencies  of  which  he  was  such  a  master.  Shake- 
speare's characters  were  characteristic,  indicative 
of  central  qualities,  a  carefully  conducted  study  in 
the  philosophy  of  life.  Hence  his  characterizations 
cannot  be  imitated  with  any  degree  of  success. 
There  is  but  one  Hamlet  and  one  Lear  and  one 


138  Special  Discussions 

Juliet  in  literature,  in  the  Shakespearean  sense  of 
that  term,  as  unique  as  the  Faust  of  Goethe, -even 
though  Marlowe's  "  Faustus  "  is  a  work  of  special 
merit.  The  mastery  of  the  masters  is  nowhere 
more  evident  than  here,  as  we  find  but  one  "  Di- 
vina  Commedia "  and  one  "  Don  Quixote  "  and 
one  "  In  Memoriam "  and  one  "  Canterbury 
Tales,"  no  one  of  them  being  approximately  im- 
itable,  but  severely  singular  and  exclusive.  Shake- 
speare was  thus  a  poet  of  poets  more  truly  than 
Spenser  was  a  teacher  of  teachers.  That  he 
founded  no  school  is  to  his  credit.  He  was  too 
great  for  any  such  pedagogic  mission.  A  standard 
author  himself,  he  did  not  impose  a  standard  upon 
others  or  even  invite  the  following  of  any  class  of 
literary  craftsmen. 

7.  Truth  to  nature  and  life  is  noteworthy. 
There  is  an  unstudied  frankness  in  Shakespeare 
which  at  once  impresses  the  reader  and  commands 
his  interest  and  assent.  There  is  the  marked  ab- 
sence of  effect  for  the  sake  of  effect,  of  any  de- 
vice of  word  or  phrase  to  mislead  the  reader. 
There  is  no  taking  advantage  of  what  is  allow- 
able in  dramatic  verse  in  the  line  of  impersona- 
tion. Nothing  of  the  "  start  theatric "  is  present 
to  surprise  and  overawe  with  what  is  called  sen- 


Elements  of  Shakespeare's  Ccnins          1^9 

sationalism.  It  is  this  ingenuousness  that  Pope 
has  in  mind  when  he  says,  "  It  is  not  so  much 
that  he  speaks  for  nature  as  that  she  speaks 
through  him."  Shakespeare  was  thus  true  to  the 
truth,  whether  it  was  found  in  the  world  without 
or  in  the  soul  of  man.  With  all  his  genius,  it  was 
not  his  prerogative  to  impose  upon  truth  any  new 
meaning,  but  simply  to  act  as  an  amanuensis  and  a 
messenger.  He  was  thus  a  pronounced  realist  in 
the  realm  of  dramatic  verse.  He  held  the  "  mirror 
up  to  nature "  and  faithfully  recorded  what  he 
saw  without  bias  or  secondary  motive.  While 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  his  sonnets  are  autobio- 
graphical, in  the  plays  he  loses  sight  of  himself  in 
the  exposition  of  the  truth.  Hence,  that  unity  of 
impression,  that  "  inner  unity "  of  all.  forms  of 
truth,  of  which  Lessing  speaks,  and  which,  accord- 
ing to  Guizot,  is  "  the  chief  principle  of  dramatic 
art,"  the  unity  of  truth  in  the  world  and  in  man, 
in  literature  and  life. 

INFERENCES 

From  the  brief  examination  thus  presented,  cer- 
tain inferences  arise,  which  seem  to  admit  of  varied 
interpretation  as  applied  to  Shakespeare. 

1.     As  to  whether  Shakespeare  has  given  us  in 


140  Special  Discussions 

his  plays  his  best  possible  work.  What  is  the  re- 
lation of  his  expressed  to  his  concealed  power? 
With  Shakespeare,  as  with  Dante  and  other  lit- 
erary masters,  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  what  is 
given  us  upon  the  printed  page  is  but  a  fraction 
of  the  wealth  of  treasure  stored  in  the  mind  and 
awaiting  suitable  verbal  embodiment.  The  prin- 
ciple of  latent  heat  or  conserved  energy  in  the 
physical  world  has  its  mental  counterpart  here.  In- 
ferior minds  often  express  more  than  they  really 
possess,  making  up  for  the  lack  of  ideas  in  mere 
verbiage.  In  the  highest  order  of  minds,  however, 
thought  is  deeper  than  language  and,  let  the  au- 
thor do  what  he  may,  there  is  left  a  large  residuum 
of  unexpressed  and  unexpressible  material.  Thus 
"  Paradise  Lost  "  is  Milton's  best  extant  work,  but 
not  as  a  matter  of  capability.  So  Shakespeare 
in  his  great  tragedies  struggles  to  embody  approx- 
imately, at  least,  his  ever-accumulating  thought. 
Such  a  masterpiece  as  Hamlet  is  no  higher  in  its 
mental  reach  above  the  productions  of  an  ordinary 
playwright  than  is  Shakespeare's  dramatic  possi- 
bility higher  than  Hamlet  or  Lear. 

2.  Whether  we  are  to  expect  in  the  near  fu- 
ture any  worthy  successors  of  Shakespeare.  A 
priori,  we  should  answer  in  the  affirmative.  If 


Elements  of  Shakespeare's  Genius         141 

Shakespeare  at  his  actual  best  was  far  from  his 
possible  best,  why  should  there  not  arise  another 
gifted  poet  of  similar  and  even  greater  power,  who 
might  make  even  nearer  approximation  to  the  full 
expression  of  his  thought?  When  Collier  calls 
him  "  the  perfect  boast  of  his  time,"  and  Schlegel 
affirms  that  "  Shakespeare  and  Calderon  are  the 
only  two  poets  entitled  to  be  called  great,"  we  are 
not  to  argue  that  the  end  of  all  literary  perfection 
has  been  reached.  A  priori,  the  limit  is  undiscov- 
erable  and  recedes  as  it  is  approached.  One  age 
is  but  the  preparation  for  another.  One  author  is 
but  the  herald  of  another  and  a  greater.  In  fine, 
the  literary  world  is  supposed  to  move.  Histori- 
cally, however,  the  question  assumes  a  different 
form.  If  such  another  genius  is  possible  to  the 
English  race,  why  has  he  not  appeared  in  the  last 
three  centuries?  Why  not,  especially,  in  the  last 
century  ?  Numerous  factors  enter  here  —  the  law 
of  action  and  reaction ;  the  principle  of  race,  epoch, 
place,  and  personality ;  the  change  of  civilization 
in  its  type,  and  the  element  of  divine  providence  in 
human  history  through  the  complex  development 
of  a  people's  life.  This,  at  least,  is  true.  There 
is  no  immediate  prospect  of  another  such  dramatic 
age  or  master.  The  signs  of  the  time  point  in  dif- 


142  Special  Discussions 

ferent  directions,  though  it  is  possible  that  out  of 
the  present  dominance  of  realistic  fiction  some 
type  of  new  dramatic  power  may  yet  emerge.  The 
fact  is,,  that  the  appearance  of  Shakespeare  in  the 
Elizabethan  Age,  still  remains  a  mystery.  That 
poetry  should  have  taken  dramatic  form  in  the 
new  awakening  was  not  so  surprising,  but  the 
masterfulness  of  it  is  not  so  easily  explained.  As 
to  Shakespeare,  the  surprise  is  increased  when  it 
is  remembered  that  the  stage  was  not  at  the  time 
in  high  repute,  that  playwrights  wrote  mainly  for 
bread,  and  that  though  the  age  was  Golden  as 
compared  with  the  century  and  a  half  preceding 
it,  it  was,  in  many  respects,  an  age  of  crudeness 
and  partial  development  and  faulty  literary  stand- 
ards. Herein,  indeed,  is  some  basis  of  hope  as  to 
England's  dramatic  future,  and  herein  lies  the 
faith  of  those  few  prophets  among  us  who  are 
looking  for  the  dawn  of  such  a  day  and  are  bid- 
ding us  be  on  our  guard  lest  it  take  us  by  surprise. 
3.  As  to  whether  Shakespeare  was  conscious 
of  his  gifts.  In  one  of  his  sonnets,  he  writes:— 

"  Desiring   this   man's  art  and  that  man's  scope," 
thus  acknowledging  his  inferiority  to  some  of  his 
contemporaries.     We  note  with  surprise  his  care- 


Elements  of  Shakespeare's  Genius         143 

lessness  as  to  the  publication  and  presentation  of 
his  dramas,  written  apparently  for  the  time  only, 
and  with  no  reference  to  fame.  Never  has  a  poet 
written  with  less  idea  of  literary  repute.  Indeed, 
Shakespeare  wrote  and  acted,  as  Jonson,  Marlowe, 
and  others  of  his  contemporaries,  for  monetary 
ends.  He  went  from  Stratford  to  London  in  1585, 
as  other  young  men  went  to  London,  to  seek  and 
find  a  lucrative  mission,  preferring  to  find  it  in 
the  composition  and  rendering  of  plays  and  as  a 
shareholder  in  the  Blackfriars  Theater.  Having 
accomplished  this  practical  end,  we  do  not  find 
him  continuing  his  residence  in  London  and  writ- 
ing dramatic  verse  from  the  love  of  it.  He  re- 
turned to  Stratford  in  1610  with  a  competence, 
and  for  the  enjoyment  of  a  well-earned  leisure, 
though  it  lasted  but  six  years.  Moreover,  in 
Stratford,  as  late  as  1600,  plays  were  officially  pro- 
hibited. Dramatists  themselves  did  not  hold  their 
professions  in  high  repute,  and  we  cannot  wonder 
that  Shakespeare  aimed  at  financial  ends  only.  It 
has,  in  fact,  been  reserved  for  later  eras  to  ascer- 
tain how  gifted  a  genius  Shakespeare  was.  So 
capricious  is  earthly  renown. 

4.     As  to  how  to  account  for  the  tardy  recogni- 
tion of   Shakespeare  and  his  work.     We   are  not 


144  Special  Discussions 

dealing  with  an  author  whose  literary  product  is 
inferior  or  undeserving,  but  instinct  with  genius. 
In  the  Elizabethan  Age  he  was  but  one  among 
numerous  dramatists;  and  if,  here  and  there,  there 
seemed  to  be  the  acknowledgment  of  his  superior- 
ity, there  was,  also,  an  occasional  thrust  by  way  of 
satire  against  the  attribution  to  him  of  any  special 
gift.  Even  Dryden,  a  century  later,  wrote  that 
his  idiom  was  "  a  little  out  of  use."  Later  still,  Dr. 
Johnson,  the  critical  authority  of  his  day,  omits 
his  name  in  his  "  Lives  of  the  English  Poets," 
discussing  rather  the  work  of  Cowley,  Denham, 
Waller,  and  Rowe.  From  Elizabeth  he  received 
some  notice,  indeed,  but  quite  too  little  >  and  more 
for  the  sake  of  the  court  than  out  of  regard  for 
the  genius  of  the  dramatist.  In  1707,  "  King 
Lear  "  was  spoken  of  as  "  an  obscure  piece,"  while 
Voltaire  was  not  the  only  critic  who  classed  him 
with  the  inferior  poetasters  of  the  nation,  stating 
that  "he  wrote  a  number  of  farces  called  trage- 
dies." 

In  seeking  reasons  for  such  neglect  we  note: 
The  prevalence  of  foreign  tastes  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries;  the  dominance  of 
euphuism  as  a  false  conception  of  literature;  .the 
civil  wars  and  commotions  of  the  early  Stuart 


Elements  of  Shakespeare's  Genius         145 

Dynasty;  and  the  excesses  of  the  Puritans  in  the 
days  of  Cromwell.  All  of  these,  in  connection 
with  the  low  status  of  the  stage  and  dramatic  art, 
would  largely  account  for  the  comparative  indiffer- 
ence of  the  age  to  its  greatest  author.  The  fact 
is,  Shakespeare  did  not  know  himself  in  the  full- 
ness of  his  power,  neither  had  the  age  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  itself  —  what  it  was  as  the  first  of 
the  modern  periods,  and  what  it  possessed  in  its 
more  eminent  authors.  It  was  not  till  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  and  partly  through  the  influence  of 
Germany,  that  English  literature  knew  what  it  had 
in  Shakespeare  and  began  in  earnest  to  defend  and 
diffuse  his  fame. 

The  place  of  Shakespeare  in  English  letters  is 
now  conceded  by  acclamation.  "  Milton  and 
Shakespeare,"  says  Walpole,  "  are  the  only  two 
mortals  who  ventured  beyond  the  visible  and  pre- 
served their  intellects."  A  genius,  in  every  well- 
understood  sense  of  the  word,  looking  higher  and 
deeper  than  other  men,  revealing  man  to  himself 
and  the  world,  writing  for  all  men  and  all  time, 
he  justifies  the  eulogium  of  Milton, 

"  Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  fame." 

When  Coleridge,  in  his  "Table  Talk,"  tells  us 


146  Special  Discussions 

that  "  Shakespeare  has  no  manner,"  he  simply 
means  that  he  is  "  universal/'  a  poet  of  man  and 
nature,  one  of  God's  ordained  priests  to  minister 
at  the  altar  of  truth,  and  one  of  his  ordained 
prophets  to  interpret  the  mind  of  God  to  men. 

The  main  occasion,  after  all  is  said,  of  the  so- 
called  Baconian  Theory  of  the  Plays  is  seen  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  one  of  many  attempts  to  account  for 
such  a  genius  on  any  known  laws  of  human  his- 
tory and  character.  The  English  world  has  prac- 
tically ceased  to  account  for  him,  but  accepts  him 
as  he  is  in  his  unique  personality  and  work. 


II 

SHAKESPEAREANA 

BY  this  term  are  meant  all  those  facts  and  inci- 
dents pertaining  to  Shakespeare's  life  and  writings 
and  influence,  of  less  or  greater  interest,  expressed 
in  written  form  or  current  in  the  shape  of  oral  tra- 
dition, which  may  serve  to  throw  any  light  on  this 
unique  and  supreme  author,  or  in  any  way  increase 
the  interest  of  the  student  in  the  examination  of 
his  works.  The  number  and  character  of  these 
fugitive  data  are  such  that  entire  libraries  may  be 
said  to  be  made  up  therewith,  as,  also,  separate  lec- 
tureships have  been  established  to  collect,  arrange, 
and  interpret  them.  These  collections  and  courses 
may  be  found  in  almost  every  university  center,  so 
that  Goethe's  suggestive  phrase,  "  Shakespeare  und 
kein  Ende,"  is  fully  illustrated  in  Germany  and 
throughout  Europe.  "  Shakespeare  Once  More  " 
is  found  as  an  essay  among  Lowell's  literary  pa- 
pers, and  yet  once  more,  and  yet  again,  will  this 
imperial  man  be  studied.  Ben  Jonson  speaks  of 
his  respect  for  him  as  "  something  this  side  idola- 
147 


148  Special  Discussions 

try."  Schlegel,  as  representing  German  criticism, 
writes  that  "  for  centuries  to  come  his  fame  will 
gather  strength  at  every  moment  of  its  progress." 
Guizot,  as  a  French  critic,  calls  him  "  a  prodigious 
genius,"  while  even  Taine  speaks  of  him  as  "  the 
greatest  of  all  artists  who  have  represented  the 
soul  in  words."  The  opening  sentence  of  Taine's 
chapter  on  Shakespeare  is  even  more  suggestive. 
It  reads :  "  I  am  about  to  describe  an  extraordinary 
species  of  mind,  perplexing  to  all  the  French  modes 
of  analysis  and  reasoning;  ...  a  nature  inspired, 
superior  to  reason,  so  impetuous  in  his  transports 
that  this  great  age  alone  could  have  cradled  such  a 
child."  In  view  of  tributes  such  as  these  we  may 
say,  as  Hazlitt  said  of  Milton,  that  "  he  never 
should  be  taken  up  or  laid  down  without  rev- 
erence." The  study,  therefore,  of  what  we  term 
Shakespeareana  is  at  once  invested  with  an  inter- 
est that  belongs  to  no  other  separate  subject  in 
English  authorship.  It  is  noteworthy,  first  of  all, 
that  the  data  as  to  some  of  the  leading  facts  and 
phases  of  his  life  are,  in  their  number  and  value, 
in  the  inverse  ratio  of  his  genius  and  work,  such 
facts  being  scattered  here  and  there  in  the  local 
history  of  the  time,  and  so  meager  at  best  as  to 
leave  forever  unsettled  some  questions  of  pressing 


Shakespeareana  149 

moment.  These  pertain  alike  to  what  Dowden 
calls  "  his  external  life  of  good  and  evil  fortune  " 
and  "  the  inner  life  of  his  spirit." 

Shakespeare's  early  life  at  Stratford,  dating 
from  his  birth  in  1564  to  his  majority,  need  not 
long  detain  us.  At  the  free  school  he  received  the 
elements  of  an  English  training  with  some  admix- 
ture of  Latin  and,  possibly,  French  and  Italian. 
Tradition  has  it  that  for  a  time  he  engaged  in  the 
practice  of-  law,  and  even  essayed  the  role  of  a 
schoolmaster,  the  stress  of  financial  need  forcing 
him  at  length  to  London  —  perhaps  to  publish 
plays  already  written,  or  to  be  connected  with 
some  of  his  townsmen  or  London  friends  in  dra- 
matic work,  or,  indeed,  to  assume  the  function  of 
an  actor,  as  we  know  he  did  in  "  Hamlet "  and  "As 
You  Like  It  "  and  some  of  Jonson's  comedies.  Be- 
ginning his  London  life  in  1585  as  a  servant  and 
herald  at  the  old  theater  in  Shoreditch,  we  find 
him,  in  1592,  a  playwright  and  player  in  the  chief 
dramatic  guild  of  the  time,  writing  and  acting  for 
profit  more  than  for  fame,  his  advice  through 
Hamlet  to  the  players  clearly  showing  that  he  had, 
in  theory  at  least,  the  correct  view  as  to  dramatic 
art  and  just  what  the  stage  was  expected  to  do 
in  making  the  composition  the  most  effective. 


150  Special  Discussions 

Moreover,  he  fulfilled  what  the  late  Henry  Irving 
so  emphasized  as  the  essential  condition  of  compos- 
ing a  play  for  the  stage  —  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  all  the  details  of  theatrical  method  and  manage- 
ment. Even  yet,  however,  the  material  side 
seemed  to  dominate  the  mental,  and  we  anxiously 
await  the  full  dawning  of  the  fact  in  Shakespeare's 
consciousness,  who  in  reality  he  was,  what  he  was 
doing  and  could  do  in  dramatic  and  histrionic 
spheres,  and  what  his  real  relation  aS  an  author 
was  to  the  expanding  volume  of  English  letters. 
Not  as  yet  had  he  fully  "  come  to  himself  "  nor  to 
his  great  mission,  for  which  the  way  was  soon  to 
be  made  through  the  agency  of  royal  and  general 
recognition.  In  Paris  with  the  Earl  of  Southamp- 
ton, to  whom  he  dedicated  his  "  Venus  and 
Adonis  "  as  "  the  first  heir  of  his  invention  "  ;  acting 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  Queen  and  court  at  Green- 
wich and  Richmond  Palace  and  at  Whitehall,  be- 
fore the  jurists  at  the  Inns  of  Court,  as  well  as 
before  James  L,  his  career  was  now  successfully 
opened  as  at  the  Globe  Theater  and  Blackfriars  he 
prosecuted  his  high  calling.  From  the  publication 
of  "  King  Richard  II.,"  in  1597,  well  on  toward 
his  death,  in  1616,  play  after  play  appeared  in 
rapid  succession  and  the  rare  dramatic  repute  of 


Shakespearean^  151 

Elizabethan  England  was  assured.  His  reasons 
for  leaving  London  at  the  zenith  of  his  fame  need 
not  be  examined,  if,  indeed,  they  can  be  known ; 
whether  because  of  sufficient  income  and  sufficient 
reputation  or  an  increasing  desire  to  enjoy  the  re- 
tired leisure  of  an  old  English  town.  Such  a 
leisure  he  in  part  enjoyed  during  the  half  dozen 
closing  years  of  his  life,  spending  his  time,  ac- 
cording to  Lowell,  "  in  collecting  his  dividends 
from  the  Globe  Theater,  lending  money  on  good 
mortgage,  and  leaning  over  his  gate  to  chat  with 
his  neighbors,"  it  being  a  strange  coincidence  that 
when  back  at  Stratford  to  live  and  die  theaters 
were  closed  by  process  of  law.  At  the  untimely 
age  of  fifty-two  Shakespeare  died,  a  man  —  as 
Mrs.  Browning  in  her  "  Vision  of  Poets  "  strongly 
states  it  —  "  on  whose  forehead  climb  the  crowns 
of  the  world." 

In  the  survey  of  Shakespeare's  life  some  ques- 
tions of  special  interest  emerge. 

1.  First,  as  to  his  education.  It  is  known  that 
he  was  not  a  university  man.  In  this  respect  he 
was  exceptional,  as  an  Elizabethan  author,  though 
in  company  with  Jonson  and  Middleton.  In  his 
works,  however,  there  are  found  accurate  descrip- 
tions of  countries  and  customs,  the  use  of  classical 


152  Special  Discussions 

terms  in  etymological  senses,  delicate  verbal  dis- 
tinctions, and  a  use  of  technical  terms  common  only 
to  a  scholar,  as  seen  in  his  free  use  of  medical  and 
legal  phraseology.  This,  it  is  argued  by  some, 
was  a  part  of  his  natural  endowment,  due  to 
genius  pure  and  simple.  Dryden  says  that  he  was 
"  naturally  learned."  He  had,  says  Drummond, 
"  natural  brain,"  or,  as  Denham  styles  it,  "  old 
mother-wit."  He  speaks,  himself,  of  his  "  un- 
tutored lines."  Such  an  explanation,  however,  does 
not  meet  the  issue.  Genius  itself  has  its  limita- 
tions. It  cannot  impart  technical  knowledge, 
though  it  may  exceptionally  utilize  it  when  secured. 
Not  that  the  man  of  special  endowment  may  not 
possess  the  acquisitive  faculty  in  peculiar  power, 
so  that  he  sees  more  quickly  than  others,  discard- 
ing all  tuition  and  external  aid.  But  the  genius 
of  acquisition  is  not  that  of  invention;  it  takes  for 
granted  a  process  of  training  and  study  to  com- 
pass the  results  toward  which  it  is  reaching.  Still 
again,  it  is  said  that  he  was  a  borrower  at  large, 
applying  at  pleasure  the  material  he  needed  for  the 
special  purpose  in  hand.  That  he  used  all  needed 
material  in  the  evolution  of  his  plans  is  conceded, 
but  this  is,  after  all,  nothing  other  than  securing 
such  material  by  unwearied  industry.  He  had  ac- 


Shakespeareana  153 

cess,  as  others  had,  to  the  open  storehouse  of 
known  truth.  Shakespeare's  learning  was  acquired 
by  ordinary  process.  He  may  have  had,  as  Jonson 
tells  us,  "  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,"  but  he 
utilized  in  phenomenal  ways  that  which  he  had. 
A  comparison  here  between  Shakespeare  and 
Burns,  each  a  genius  and  each  without  liberal 
training,  will  reveal  the  immense  superiority  of 
the  former  both  as  to  the  acquisition  and  use  of 
literary  material.  This  difficulty  of  accounting  for 
such  learning  has  given  some  basis  to  the  Baconian 
theory  of  the  plays,  with  regard  to  which  it  may 
be  said  that  if  by  this  we  escape  one  difficulty  we 
invite  another  equally  serious,  in  that  it  is  as  diffi- 
cult to  account  for  the  possession  of  Shakespearean 
genius  by  Bacon  as  it  is  to  account  for  the  posses- 
sion of  Baconian  learning  by  Shakespeare.  More- 
over, scholars  are  slowly  conceding  that  liberally 
educated  men  have  no  monopoly  of  truth,  and 
that  often,  as  they  sit  dreaming  over  their  books 
in  fancied  possession  of  special  privilege,  these  un- 
tutored minds  —  so  called  —  are  looking  at  the 
world  of  life  and  fact  with  their  eyes  wide  open 
and  taking  in  all  they  see  and  hear. 

2.     A  second  question  pertains  to  Shakespeare's 
religious   beliefs  and   life.     Here  again  there   are 


154  Special  Discussions 

extreme  views.  That  he  was  an  essentially  godly 
man,  after  the  type  of  Knox  and  Fox  and  the 
English  reformers  is  the  view  of  some.  Hence  we 
are  told  that  his  plays  are  a  kind  of  second  Bible, 
as  Mr.  Rees,  in  his  "  Shakespeare  and  the  Bible," 
sets  forth.  Hence  his  allusions  to  Christ,  tfie 
Deity,  and  the  atonement,  as  set  forth  by  Bishop 
Wordsworth,  are  magnified  by  critics  in  support 
of  this  view.  "  The  Tempest/'  we  are  told,  is  the 
dramatist's  account  of  Paul's  voyage  and  ship- 
wreck. In  fact,  in  these  biblical  references  there  is 
nothing  conclusive,  since  Shakespeare  used  them, 
as  he  used  the  facts  of  history,  as  purely  literary 
material.  As  he  himself  tells  us,  even  "  the  devil 
can  cite  Scripture  for  his  purpose."  The  Bible 
and  theological  teaching  took  their  place,  in  his 
view,  with  all  other  sources  from  which  he  drew 
at  pleasure.  A  more  dangerous  extreme  asserts 
that  Shakespeare  was  a  wild  and  reckless  youth, 
defying  all  human  and  divine  law,  dissipating  at 
Stratford  and  in  the  clubs  of  London.  His  death, 
it  is  said,  was  due  to  a  fever  contracted  at  a 
"  merry  meeting  "  with  Jonson  and  Drayton ;  "  a 
native  wit,"  says  Taine  with  irony,  "  not  shackled 
by  morality."  Most  of  this  gratuitous  criticism  is 
based  on  pure  conjecture,  and  should  receive  no  in- 


Shakcspeareana  •  155 

dorsement  at  the  hands  of  the  careful  student  of 
English  letters.  The  modified  and  more  charitable 
view  is  that  Shakespeare  had  a  creditable  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible,  that  he  had  been  Christianly  in- 
structed and  trained  in  the  Protestant  faith,  and, 
at  the  close  of  his  life  at  least,  appears  as  a  thor- 
oughly upright  citizen  and  a  worthy  man  of  the 
world.  .Not  a  Christian  by  open  profession,  he 
looked  at  truth  and  duty  in  his  own  way,  main- 
tained an  honorable  attitude  toward  the  church  and 
the  prevailing  faith,  and  aimed  in  what  he  wrote 
to  elevate  the  moral  standards  of  the  time.  As 
Chaucer  before  him,  he  never  posed  as  a  reformer, 
announced  no  creed,  and  championed  no  special 
moral  movement,  and  yet,  as  Guizot  writes,  "  was 
the  most  profound  and  dramatic  of  moralists." 
Neither  a  pessimist  nor  an  optimist,  he  stood  on 
the  safe  ground  of  meliorism,  believing  that  all 
was  working  steadily  for  the  better.  Despite  the 
fact  that  his  pages  must  be  at  times  expurgated  to 
meet  the  somewhat  fastidious  taste  of  modern 
times,  no  one  can  rationally  accuse  him  of  a  willful 
purpose  to  corrupt  the  conscience  or  shock  the 
most  delicate  sensibilities  of  his  readers.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  he  was  immeasurably  above  the  stand- 
ard of  his  fellow-dramatists.  Such  a  play  as 


156  •  Special  Discussions 

"  Macbeth  "  is  a  study  in  moral  science  quite  im- 
possible to  an  author  who  was  not  well  versed  in 
ethical  distinctions  and  anxious  to  throw  the 
weight  of  his  influence  on  the  side  of  truth  and 
right.  As  to  Shakespeare's  religious  beliefs  and 
life,  however,  this  is  to  be  said  as  a  final  word  — 
that  they  lie  properly  outside  the  sphere  of  the  lit- 
erary student  as  such.  It  is  questionable  whether, 
if  asked  to  do  so,  he  could  have  formulated  his 
own  doctrinal  creed,  while  he  lived  his  private  life 
in  accordance  with  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
essential  principles  of  Christian  morality.  His  re- 
ligious personality  is  as  much  concealed  in  his 
plays  as  his  mental,  and  social  and  civic  or,  indeed, 
his  literary  personality.  He  writes  as  an  interpret- 
er of  general  truth  to  men  and  not  as  a  revealer 
of  his  own  states  of  mind  or  ethical  conditions. 

3.  A  further  topic  of  interest  included  under 
our  caption  is  the  English  of  Shakespeare  —  as  an 
example  of  sixteenth-century  or  Elizabethan  Eng- 
lish, or  of  that  "  New  English  "  of  which  Oliphant 
speaks  as  representing  the  opening  of  the  Modern 
English  era  as  distinct  from  the  Old  and  Middle 
English  of  Alfred  and  Chaucer.  It  Is  to  this  that 
Meres,  in  his  "  Palladis  Tamia,"  refers  when  he 
says  that  "  the  Muses  would  speak  with  Shake- 


Shakcspcareana  15.7 

speare's  fine-filed  phrase  if  they  would  speak  Eng- 
lish," or,  as  Wordsworth  expresses  it, 

•  "  We  must  be  free  or  die  who  speak  the  tongue 
That  Shakespeare  spake." 

Including  in  his  vocabulary  about  fifteen  thousand 
of  the  fifty  thousand  English  words  then  current, 
making  a  happy  combination  of  the  literary  and 
the  popular,  using  words  in  primitive  senses  and 
yet  in  obedience  to  the  demands  of  the  verse,  giv- 
ing due  deference  to  the  claims  of  the  older  Eng- 
lish while  fully  in  line  with  the  developing  history 
of  the  language,  above  all,  using  a  diction  thor- 
oughly suited  to  his  own  personality  and  purpose 
as  an  author,  the  phrase  "  Shakespearean  English  " 
is  rightly  regarded  as  one  synonymous  with  good 
English.  Attention  has  been  directed  indeed  to 
the  so-called  ungrammatical  character  of  the  dra- 
matist's diction ;  to  omissions  and  inversions  and 
violations  of  standard  structure,  with  consequent 
crudeness  and  lack  of  verbal  finish.  In  a  word, 
Shakespeare  is  said  to  be  an  incorrect  writer  and 
his  English  an  unsafe  model  to  students  of  our 
language  and  style.  But  such  critics  forget  that 
in  dealing  with  the  English  of  Shakespeare  they 
are  dealing  with  an  order  of  English  three  cen- 
turies back  of  us,  and  just  at  the  formative  period 


158  Special  Discussions 

of  our  language  as  modern.  To  expect  to  find  an 
English  vocabulary,  diction,  and  structure  similar 
to  that. now  obtaining  is  to  expect  the  impossible. 
It  would  be  as  natural  to  look  for  the  dominance 
of  Chaucerian  English  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Historically  and  naturally  neither  of  these  condi- 
tions could  exist.  It  was  the  shaping,  transitional 
English  of  the  new  awakening,  partaking  alike  of 
old  and  new  elements,  with  the  increasing  empha- 
sis of  the  new.  What  would  not  be  allowable  now 
was  allowable  and  necessary  then,  while  a  part  of 
the  genius  of  Shakespeare  as  an  author  lay  in  the 
fact  that  he  clearly  comprehended  the  character 
and  the  needs  of  the  new  era;  knew  just  where  he 
stood,  and  knew  what  he  was  to  do  and  did  it.  The 
fact  that  we  now  need  an  Elizabethan  grammar 
and  glossary  fully  to  interpret  the  diction  and 
structure  of  the  plays  is  no  discredit  to  Shake- 
speare, but  the  best  evidence  that  he  knew  his 
place  as  an  Elizabethan,  the  compass  and  limita- 
tions of  the  language  he  was  using,  while  at  the 
same  time  so  loyal  to  its  intrinsic  nature  as  to  ren- 
der these  very  plays  comprehensible  to  every  intel- 
ligent modern  reader.  A  comparison  here,  again, 
between  Shakespeare  and  the  minor  dramatists 
will  reveal  the  vast  difference  between  the  use  of 


Shakespcareand  159 

English  in  its  idiomatic  strength  and  richness  and 
its  use  as  modified  by  various  classical  and  Conti- 
nental influences.  One  of  the  unanswerable  argu- 
ments against  the  Baconian  authorship  of  the  plays 
is  found  at  this  point:  that,  in  so  far  as  we  have 
an  example  of  Baconian  English  in  Bacon's 
works,  it  is  an  order  of  English  far  below  the 
Shakespearean  as  to  its  native  idiom  and  range. 
Bacon  could  not  have  written  "  Cymbeline "  or 
"  The  Winter's  Tale,"  even  as  Shakespeare  could 
not  have  written  "  The  Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing." Even  in  the  sixteenth  century  an  author 
three  fourths  of  whose  literary  product  was  in 
Latin  was  not  the  author  to  use  the  native  lan- 
guage as  the  great  dramatist  did.  In  the  use  of 
terse  and  trenchant  words,  in  the  nice  adaptation  of 
the  word  to  the  idea,  and  of  the  word  to  the  spe- 
cific character  at  the  time  uttering  it,  in  the  use  of 
what  Whipple  has  called  "  suggestive  terms,"  in 
the  large  place  given  to  the  Old  English  element, 
and  in  the  pervading  euphony  of  the  language,  this 
order  of  English  was  without  a  parallel  in  its  own 
clay,  and  has  as  yet  no  superior.  The  justifiable 
inference  is  that,  in  whatever  later  period  Shake- 
speare might  have  lived,  he  would  have  been  as 
true  an  exponent  of  the  best  English  of  the  time 


160  Special  Discussions 

i 

as  he  was  in  the  transitional  age  of  the  Tudors. 
4.  Special  attention  should  be  called  to  Shake- 
speare's use  of  figure.  Figurative  language  finds 
its  best  expression  in  verse,  as  the  more  imaginative 
form  of  literature,  and  in  verse  itself  comes  to  its 
best  expression  in  the  drama,  so  that  the  student 
of  symbolic  terms  could  gather  from  these  thirty- 
seven  plays  alone  a  sufficient  number  and  variety 
of  figures  to  constitute  a  manual  for  educational 
use.  His  pages  abound  in  simile  and  metaphor 
and  allegory;  in  antithesis  and  epigram;  in  irony, 
hyperbole,  personification,  and  climax ;  in  all  the 
varied  forms  of  metonymy,  there  being  a  notable 
combination  of  the  milder  with  the  more  vigorous 
figures  of  pictorial  literature.  Even  in  the  his- 
torical plays,  so  didactic  in  method  and  style,  there 
is  a  rare  use  of  symbolism,  as,  especially,  in  the 
great  dramas  founded  on  Roman  character  and 
life.  To  attempt  a  selection  from  such  a  mass  of 
symbolic  wealth  is  almost  invidious,  it  being  safe 
to  say  of  Shakespeare,  what  cannot  be  said  so  fully 
of  any  other  English  poet,  that  any  page  of  his 
verse,  opened  at  random,  will  furnish  some  fitting 
example  of  this  graphic  diction,  such  a  play  as  "A 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream "  being  almost  one 
continuous  expression  of  figurative  phraseology. 


Shakespeareana  161 

So  frequent  and  pertinent  is  this  tropical  use  of 
language  that  the  reader  is  at  times  at  a  loss  to 
know  which  is  the  controlling  factor,  the  literal  or 
the  symbolic.  So  deftly  are  they  interwoven  that 
the  nicest  scrutiny  cannot  dissever  them.  Here, 
again,  Shakespeare's  use  of  figure  rises  to  the  plane 
of  genius,  the  figure,  moreover,  never  being  used 
for  its  own  sake,  but  only  as  an  adjutant  to  the 
thought,  to  make  it  clearer  and  more  impressive. 
5.  Another  subject  of  interest  is  found  in  the 
study  of  Shakespeare  as  a  dramatic  artist  —  a 
phrase  that  has  become  more  current  of  late  by  the 
suggestive  use  made  of  it  in  a  treatise  by  Profes- 
sor Moulton,  the  emphasis  being  laid  on  the  word 
"  artist."  In  the  preface  to  his  work  the  author 
writes  of  the  wrong  impression  among  English 
readers  that  "  Shakespeare  is  careless  as  to  the 
technicalities  of  dramatic  art,"  insisting  that  he 
was  as  masterly  in  this  as  in  any  other  expression 
of  his  genius,  so  that  he  really  created  a  revolu- 
tion in  the  province  of  dramatic  technique  and  crit- 
icism. Hudson,  in  his  standard  edition  of  Shake- 
speare, refers  directly  to  this,  as  he  writes,  "  First 
and  foremost  of  the  things  in  which  Shakespeare 
is  especially  distinguished  is  dramatic  composi- 
tion," by  which  he  means  dramatic  art,  of  which 


162  Special  Discussions 

he  alleges  there  was  no  intelligent  view  in  England 
prior  to  the  sixteenth  century  and  Shakespeare 
himself,  who  illustrated  in  his  plays  that  a  drama 
is  "  an  organic  structure  "  and  not  a  mere  fortu- 
itous collection  of  scenic  material;  as  he  also 
evinced  an  ability  well-nigh  intuitive  of  conceiving 
and  developing  character.  While  the  conception  of 
the  character  belongs,  in  a  sense,  to  dramatic 
genius,  what  is  known  as  characterization,  or  the 
portrayal  of  the  character,  belongs  to  dramatic 
art,  and  in  Shakespeare  the  latter  is  as  pronounced 
as  the  former.  A  most  suggestive  sentiment  from 
Lessing,  the  German  critic,  is  here  in  place,  that 
"  the  artist  of  genius  contains  within  himself  the 
best  of  all  rules."  Not  that  he  is  above  all  literary 
law  —  Lessing  does  not  assert  this  —  but  that,  the 
law  being  present  and  accepted  and  applied,  the 
test  of  its  fitness  and  force  is  found  not  in  the 
schools,  nor  in  this  or  that  consensus  of  literary 
opinion,  but  in  the  inherent  artistic  sense  of  the 
poet  himself,  who  instinctively  accepts  or  rejects 
that  which  is  offered  to  his  suffrage.  Genius  that 
Shakespeare  was,  he  was  none  the  less  an  artist, 
but  "  an  artist  of  genius,"  and  no  view  can  be  far- 
ther from  the  truth  than  that  this  great  thinker 
and  writer  did  what  he  did  without  effort,  cr  de- 


Shakespeare  ana  163 

sign,  or  deference  to  literary  statute,  by  the  sheer 
unguided  action  of  innate  tendencies  and  taste.  No 
more  laborious  student  and  worker  than  he  was 
in  the  days  of  his  middle  manhood  lived  in  Lon- 
don; a  student  in  the  conception  and  composition 
of  plays,  in  adjustment  of  part  to  part  according 
to  a  definite  plan,  in  the  revision  and  criticism  of 
his  own  work,  so  that  he  might  present  a  resultant 
in  which  nature  and  art,  invention  and  execution, 
had  each  its  place  and  were  mutually  helpful. 

6.  A  word  as  to  the  limitations  of  Shakespeare's 
genius,  the  elements  of  which  we  have  already  dis- 
cussed. Addison  in  his  criticism  of  "  Paradise 
Lost "  remarks  that  he  has  "  seen  in  the  works  of 
a  modern  philosopher  a  map  of  the  spots  in  the 
sun."  So  even  Shakespeare  has  his  defects,  though 
they  may  be  "  the  defects  of  his  virtues."  It  is 
somewhat  surprising,  for  example,  that  he  ever 
could  have  written,  the  Sonnets  excepted,  his  non- 
dramatic  poems,  which,  as  a  whole,  seldom  rise 
above  the  veriest  commonplace  either  in  thought 
or  structure.  In  few  instances,  if  any,  has  Cole- 
ridge so  forgotten  himself  as  when  he  assigns  to 
these  productions  any  high  order  of  merit.  The 
titles  of  these  poems  —  "  Venus  and  Adonis,"  '  The 
Rape  of  Lucrece/'  "A  Lover's  Complaint,"  and 


164  Special  Discussions 

;<  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  " — indicate  their  charac- 
ter as  not  only  cynical  but  sensuous,  even  verging 
close  to  the  line  of  error  in  aesthetic  art  and  not 
infrequently  crossing  it.  It  would  be  -difficult  to 
find  any  considerable  number  of  stanzas  in  them 
that  remind  us  even  indirectly  of  Shakespeare. 
Here  and  there  we  find  a  line  or  couplet  indicative 
of  the  master,  some  of  the  most  notable  lines  being 
justly  assigned  to  Marlowe.  It  is  in  these  poems 
that  the  charge  of  euphuism,  or  overwrought  sen- 
timent and  expression,  finds  its  fullest  justification. 
It  is  to  this  that  Hazlitt  alludes  as  he  speaks  of 
Shakespeare's  use  of  "  all  the  technicalities  of  art 
.  .  .  where  words  have  been  made  a  substitute  for 
things."  So  Dowden  remarks,  in  writing  of 
"  Venus  and  Adonis ,"  that  Shakespeare's  endeavor 
was  "  to  invent  elaborate  speeches  in  that  style  of 
high-wrought  fantasy  which  was  the  fashion  of  the 
time."  It  is  to  this  euphuistic  feature  that  Jonson 
refers  when  he  wishes  that  Shakespeare  "  had 
blotted  a  thousand  lines  "  from  the  completed  text 
of  his  plays.  "  I  am  ready  to  grant,"  writes  Low- 
ell, "  that  Shakespeare  is  sometimes  tempted  away 
from  the  natural  by  the  quaint ;  that  he  sometimes 
forces  a  partial,  even  a  verbal,  analogy  between 
the  abstract  thought  and  the  sensual  image  into 


Shakcspcareana  105 

an  absolute  identity."  Frequent  reference  has 
justly  been  made  to  the  presence  of  this  error  in 
the  character  of  Shakespeare. as  a  wit,  when,  leav- 
ing the  safer  and  more  natural  province  of  humor, 
he  plays  upon  words  and  fanciful  resemblances  so 
as  to  direct  attention  from  the  thought  to  the  mode 
of  stating  it.  In  these  lighter  poems  of  mere  sen- 
timent the  temptations  to  such  forced  conceits  are 
too  potent  to  be  resisted.  Nor  is  the  error  con- 
fined to  the  non-dramatic  poems.  When  we  are 
told  by  White  that  "  Titus  Andronicus "  is  a 
"  tragedy  filled  with  bombastic  language,"  that 
"  Love's  Labour's  Lost  "  is  "  an  almost  boyish  pro- 
duction," that  "  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  " 
shows  that  the  "  poet  had  not  freed  himself  from 
the  influence  of  the  prose  romances  of  his  early 
days,"  special  reference  is  made  to  this  sin  of  dif- 
fuseness  with  all  its  attendant  evils.  The  greatest 
of  minds,  however,  are  at  times  off  their  guard, 
and  at  times  purposely  below  their  best  selves,  so 
that,  all  errors  conceded  at  this  point,  justice  de- 
mands that  Shakespeare  be  judged  rather  by  his 
own  protests  against  euphuism  and  his  incisive 
caricature  of  it  than  by  occasional  fault  in  this 
direction.  Even  where  at  times  he  seems  to  be 
purposely  euphuistic,  a  closer  examination  reveals 


166  Special  Discussions 

the  fact  that  he  is  acting  in  the  role  of  an  imper- 
sonator of  character,  hoping,  in  this  indirect  man- 
ner, the  better  to  expose  and  condemn  a  current 
Elizabethan  error. 

7.  Hence  we  turn  with  renewed  interest  to  a 
final  topic  —  Shakespeare's  pervasive  presence  in 
Modern  English  literature.  The  statement  has 
been  made  respecting  Emerson  and  the  Emerson- 
ian influence  has  become  a  substantive  part  of 
American  literature.  The  same  remark  may  be 
made  as  to  Shakespeare's  personality  in  English 
letters.  It  is  a  pervasive  presence,  a  sort  of  pan- 
anthropism  in  our  literary  product.  Read  where 
we  will,  we  see  it  in  prose  and  verse,  in  epic  and 
drama  and  lyric,  in  mind  and  art,  in  English  civ- 
ilization and  social  history.  English  poetry,  espe- 
cially, is  thoroughly  Shakespeareanized.  The  forms 
or  evidences  of  this  presence  are  varied.  We  see 
it  first  of  all  in  the  extended  number  of  quotable 
passages  that  have  been  taken  from  his  works. 
From  other  poets  we  select  here  and  there  and  at 
length  come  to  the  limit  of  our  choice.  In  Shake- 
speare, however,  we  come  to  no  end.  Passage  fol- 
lows passage,  each  appearing  more  apt  and  forcible 
than  the  preceding.  Some  of  his  plays  are  ad- 
ducible  almost  in  their  entirety,  the  exception  being 


Shakespearean^  167 

as  to  the  portions  that  may  not  bear  citation.  Vol- 
umes of  extracts  are  thus  to  be  found  in  our  libra- 
ries, while  the  way  in  which  the  body  of  English 
literature  is  interspersed  with  these  passages  is 
quite  phenomenal.  A  further  testimony  to  this 
presence  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  the  best  of  authors 
have  their  place  and  prime,  and  the  reason  of  their 
decadence  forms  a  part  of  our  literary  study. 
Shakespeare  is  growing  younger  as  the  centuries 
pass  and  students  are  now  vying  with  each  other 
as  never  before  to  present  his  work  in  all  possible 
forms  for  popular  and  educational  purposes.  The 
question  of  the  regeneration  of  the  modern  stage 
is  before  the  modern  public,  and  after  various  the- 
ories have  been  broached  the  critics  are  coming 
back  to  the  only  tenable  one  —  the  reinstatement  of 
the  Shakespearean  drama,  and  in  ever-fuller  form, 
that  the  twentieth  century  may  learn  from  the  six- 
teenth to  what  a  high  function  dramatic  composi- 
tion may  rise.  No  higher  tribute  than  this  could 
be  paid  to  this  master  of  masters.  In  the  classifi- 
cation of  our  English  poets  Shakespeare  must  be 
allowed  to  stand  alone.  There  is  none  like  him  or 
approximately  like  him.  The  fact  is  that  as  an 
interpreter  of  human  life  Shakespeare  meets  so 
general  and  profound  a  need  that  it  is  inconceiv- 


168  Special  Discussions 

able  that  his  influence  should  ever  materially  de- 
cline, nor  is  there  at  present  any  sign  of  such 
decadence.  He  is,  by  way  of  eminence,  the  minis- 
ter of  truth  to  men,  and  his  ministry  is  indispen- 
sable. His  plays  are  not  so  much  specimens  of 
dramatic  poetry  and  a  specific  part  of  general  lit- 
erature as  they  are  a  medium  through  which  he 
offers  to  men  what  they  need  in  the  line  of  charac- 
terization and  insight. 

Of  all  authors  Shakespeare  must  be  known  per- 
sonally, must  be  communed  with  in  secret  by  the 
reader  himself,  must  be  asked  to  interpret  his 
meaning  to  us  in  his  own  way,  that  so  we  may,  in 
some  measure,  understand  what  God  did  for  the 
English  race  and  the  world  at  large  when  he  gave 
them  a  man  and  a  poet  of  such  supreme  endow- 
ment. Thus  Matthew  Arnold  penned  his  impres- 
sive tribute  as  he  abandoned  all  attempt  to  account 
for  this  imperial  poet  or  to  compare  him  with  any 
other  dramatist: — • 


"Others  abide  our  question.    Thou  art  free. 
We  ask  and  ask.    Thou  sniilest  and  art  still, 
Outtopping  knowledge.    For  the  loftiest  hill, 
Who  to  the  stars  uncrowns  his  majesty, 
Planting  his  steadfast  footsteps  in  the  sea, 
Making  the  heaven  of  heavens  his  dwelling  place, 
Spares  but  the  cloudy  border  of  his  base 


Shakespeareana  169 

To  the  foiled  searching  of  mortality ; 

And  thou,  who  didst  the  stars  and  sunbeams  know, 

Self-schooled,   self-scanned,   self-honored,  self-secure, 

Didst  tread  on  earth  unguessed  at.    Better  so ! 

All  pains  the  immortal  spirit  must  endure, 

All  weakness  which  impairs,  all  griefs  which  bow, 

Find  their  sole  speech  in  that  victorious  brow." 


Ill 

THE  EPIC  VERSE  OF  MILTON- "PARADISE  LOST" 

IN  the  study  of  Milton  as  a  poet  we  mark  two 
distinct  periods.  The  first  (1608-38)  ends  with 
his  return  from  Italy.  In  this,  we  note  the  com- 
position of  his  earlier  and  shorter  poems,  including 
such  notable  specimens' as  "On  the  Morning  of 
Christ's  Nativity,"  "  L'Allegro,"  "  II  Penseroso  " 
and  "  Comus,"  these  last  three  appearing,  nat- 
urally, at  the  close  of  the  period  (1634).  Passing 
the  intervening  era  of  prose  production  (1640-60), 
we  come  to  the  second  and  more  distinctive  poetic 
period,  extending,  practically,  to  the  close  of  the 
author's  life,  in  1674.  In  this  era,  he  composed 
his  three  elaborate  poems  —  his  two  epics,  "  Para- 
dise Lost "  and  "  Paradise  Regained,"  and  his 
semi-dramatic  poem,  "  Samson  Agonistes."  It  is 
with  his  epics,  and,  most  especially,  his  "  Paradise 
Lost,"  that  we  now  have  to  do  —  "  that  extraordi- 
nary production,"  as  Macaulay  states  it,  "  which 
the  general  suffrage  of  critics  has  placed  in  the 
highest  class  of  human  compositions,"  Some  such 
170 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton — "Paradise  Lost"    171 

a  poem  was  among  the  earliest  plans  of  his  life. 
He  promises  his  countrymen  that  it  will  appear  in 
due  time.  Even  in  boyhood  he  was  fond  of  ro- 
mance and  chivalry  and  loved  to  read  of  the  semi- 
historical  King  Arthur  of  Britain.  When  at  Cam- 
bridge, he  speaks  of  his  possible  treatment  in  the 
future  "  of  some  graver  subject "  than  that  which 
occupied  his  mind  in  university  days — 

"  Such  where  the  deep  transported  mind  may  soar 
Above  the  wheeling  poles;  and  at  Heaven's  door 
Look  in." 

In  his  complimentary  letter  to  Manso,  Tasso's  pa- 
tron at  Naples,  he  hopes  for  such  a  friend  at 
court,  if  he  ever  shall  sing  of  Arthur  and  his 
knights.  So  to  Diodati's  memory  he  speaks  of  his 
"  pipe,  sounding  strains  of  an  unknown  strength." 
In  this  same  connection,  the  well-known  "  Cam- 
bridge Manuscripts "  have  an  important  place, 
wherein  he  jots  down  themes  for  possible  discus- 
sion and  looks  far  ahead  to  some  worthy  topic. 
Amid  the  distractions  of  civil  war,  his  mind  is  still 
upon  an  epic.  He  first  planned  a  national  epic 
with  King  Arthur  as  hero.  Among  these  partially 
projected  schemes  are  no  less  than  four  separate 
plans  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  a  quarter  of  a  century 
prior  to  its  publication.  Even  in  his  prose  writings 


172  Special  Discussions 

this  poetic  tendency  appears.  In  his  "Apology  for 
Smectymnuus,"  he  says  that  "  he  betook  himself 
to  lofty  fables  and  romances  which  recount,  in  sol- 
emn cantos,  the  deeds  of  knighthood."  He  hopes 
to  write  yet,  as  he  says,  "  in  a  still  time,  when 
there  shall  be  no  more  chiding."  In  his  "  Reason 
for  Church  Government "  he  speaks  of  "  an  inward 
prompting  growing  daily  upon  him,  that  by  labor 
and  study,  joined  with  a  strong  propensity  of  na- 
ture, he  may  perhaps  leave  something  so  written 
to  after  times  as  that  they  should  not  willingly  let 
it  die."  In  this  coming  composition,  he  adds,  that 
"  he  shall  fix  all  the  industry  and  art  he  can  unite 
to  the  advancing  of  his  native  tongue,  that  what 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  and  Italians  and  Hebrews 
did  for  their  respective  vernaculars  he,  in  his  pro- 
portion, must  do  for  his."  The  worthier  the  theme, 
the  more  desirous  he  is  that  it  shall  be  presented 
in  his  native  English  and  not  in  the  Latin  or  Anglo- 
Latin  diction  of  the  schools.  In  the  same  connec- 
tion, there  follows  an  account  "  of  what  the  mind, 
at  home  in  the  spacious  circuits  of  her  musing," 
hath  proposed  to  herself  to  accomplish,  however 
difficult  the  undertaking  may  be.  He  wonders 
whether  it  shall  be  Homeric  or  Vergilian ;  whether 
like  to  Tasso  and  Job,  or,  perchance,  Aristotle; 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton— "Paradise  Lost''    173 

and  what  personage  prior  to  the  Conquest  would 
be  an  appropriate  hero.  He  questions  whether  this 
outlined  poem  shall  be  dramatic,  after  the  method 
of  the  great  Greek  tragedies,  or  lyric  and  descrip- 
tive, like  to  the  Canticles  of  Solomon  or  Saint 
John's  Apocalypse.  On  such  open  questions  his 
active  mind  is  musing.  "As  far  as  life  and  leisure 
will  extend,"  he  says,  "  so  soon  as  the  land  has 
freed  herself  from  her  present  bondage,  under 
which  no  splendid  work  can  flourish,"  this  gov- 
erning ambition  is  to  be  fulfilled.  Such  may  be 
said  to  have  been  the  antecedents  and  anticipations 
of  Milton's  epic  work  and  such  his  partial  prepara- 
tion for  it. 

The  original  form  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  pub- 
lished in  1667,  was  in  ten  books.  In  the  second 
edition  of  1673-74  it  was  issued  in  twelve  books, 
after  the  plan  of  "  The  Faerie  Queene  "  and  the 
"y£neid."  It  is  to  the  credit  of  Addison  as  a  lit- 
erary critic  that,  early  in  the  year  1712,  he  devoted 
eighteen  separate  papers  of  the  Spectator  to  the  ex- 
amination of  this  as  yet  only  English  epic  of  note. 
He  may  justly  be  said  thereby  to  have  introduced 
Milton's  poem  with  special  favor  to  the  English 
public  of  his  day,  and  to  have  laid  the  foundations 
for  that  continuous  and  appreciative  criticism  which 


174  Special  Discussions 

it  has  since  received.  This  generous  comment  was 
especially  timely,  inasmuch  as  the  epic  had  been 
waiting  forty  years  and  more  for  just  such  an  ex- 
ponent and  friend.  It  was  alike  to  Addison's 
praise  and  to  his  good  fortune  that  he  thus  was 
inclined  and  enabled  to  do  for  Milton  what  John 
Dryden  in  the  previous  century  did  for  Shake- 
speare and  the  English  drama  in  general. 

Addison  goes  on  to  examine  the  poem,  as  he 
states,  "  by  the  rules  of  epic  poetry,"  and  tests  it, 
thus,  according  to  the  three  Aristotelian  essentials 
—  Unity, '  Completeness,  and  Sublimity,  favorably 
comparing  it,  in  each  of  these  particulars,  with  the 
"  Iliad  "  and  the  "^Eneid,"  discussing  its  contents, 
its  characters,  its  sentiments  and  diction,  its  merits 
and  defects.  To  this  day,  no  student  of  English 
verse  who  desires  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  Mil- 
ton's epic  work  and  place  can  safely  neglect  this 
notable  critique,  far  in  advance,  as  it  was,  of  any- 
thing as  yet  attempted  in  the  line  of  literary  crit- 
icism. 

The  tradition  that  Milton  did  not  receive  more 
than  a  few  pounds  for  his  epic  seems  to  be  well 
founded.  According  to  Gladstone,  it  was  the  first 
instance  in  English  literature  of  actual  payment  for 
literary  work. 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton — "Paradise  Lost"    175 

The  most  concise  analysis  of  the  scheme  of  the 
poem  is  that  which  divides  it  into  three  sections, 
of  four  books  each. 

In  the  First  Section  (books  i.-iv.),  this  world 
and  the  two  worlds  beyond,  of  good  and  evil,  are 
revealed  and  man  is  seen  in  his  relation  to  these 
two  conflicting  agencies.  It  is  the  old  Persian  idea 
of  dual  forces  warring  for  mastery.  In  the  Second 
Section  (books  v.-viii.),  Raphael  appears  and 
speaks  of  what  occurred  prior  to  the  creation  of 
Adam  and  in  what  way  those  far-distant  events 
affected  the  later  history  of  the  human  race.  In 
the  Third  Section  (books  ix.-xii.),  the  Fall  of  Man 
is  revealed  and  its  dire  results  shown,  and  in  the 
place  of  Raphael's  narration  of  the  past,  the  future 
is  disclosed  through  the  agency  of  Michael,  the 
archangel.  This  vision  involves  the  revelation  of 
God  as  Redeemer:  his  plan  for  human  salvation, 
and  the  way  in  which  he  upholds  and  applies  that 
plan  in  the  fullness  of  time  and  in  obedience  to 
the  demands  of  justice  and  the  divine  government. 
A  more  minute  analysis  of  the  poem  is  given  by 
Milton  himself,  in  the  second  edition  of  1673,  in 
the  form  of  what  he  calls  "  The  Arguments  "  pre- 
fixed to  the  several  books,  as  a  logical  and  literary 
outline  or  Table  of  Contents.  From  such  an  out- 


176  Special  Discussions 

line  the  reader  can  form  some  correct  estimate  of 
the  mental  and  literary  character  of  the  epic  and 
the  degree  of  success  with  which  the  poet  has  com- 
passed and  completed  his  original  plan,  and  thus 
be  enabled  to  view  intelligently  the  place  which  it 
holds  among  its  historic  rivals.  It  is  from  the 
study  of  "  Paradise  Lost "  that  the  close  relation 
of  Milton  to  Homer  and  Dante  and  Shakespeare 
has  been  urged  and  the  question  opened  whether 
or  not  he  belongs  with  Shakespeare  to  the  same 
literary  order,  or  is  to  be  classed  as  the  first  name 
in  the  second  list  of  English  poets,  including  such 
notable  examples  as  Tennyson  and  Robert  Brown- 
ing. In  so  far  as  tradition  and  the  history  of 
opinion  are  concerned,  the  names  of  Milton  and 
Shakespeare  are  inseparably  joined,  as  indicating 
the  highest  attainment  of  poetic  art  in  England. 
Nor  is  there  as  yet  any  indication  of  the  reversal 
of  this  conclusion.  Such  a  high  estimate  of  Mil- 
ton, it  is  to  be  urged,  is  based  on  his  entire  literary 
work,  in  verse  and  prose,  in  lyric  and  descriptive, 
as  well  as  in  epic  poetry,  in  his  "Areopagitica  " 
and  "  L'Allegro "  and  "  Comus  "  as  in  his  epics 
and  his  "  Samson  Agonistes." 

In  the  study  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  one  of  the  first 
and  most  fruitful    questions  confronting    the  stu- 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton — "Paradise  Lost"    177 

dent  pertains  to  the  Sources  of  the  author's  epic 
material.  Not  only  must  we  concede  that  Milton 
made  use  of  material  gathered  from  various  quar- 
ters, but  that  he  did  so  openly  and  with  a  definite 
literary  purpose.  As  he  himself  stated  it,  "  To  bor- 
row and  to  better  in  the  borrowing  is  no  plagiary." 
Despite  this  frank  confession,  it  seems  to  have 
been  the  rare  delight  of  some  over-sensitive  critics, 
such  as  Mr.  Gosse,  to  substantiate  a  charge  of  pla- 
giarism against  Milton  and  trace  all  that  is  best  in 
his  works  to  foreign  authors.  This  theory  has 
been  pressed  with  special  zeal  against  Milton  in 
his  composition  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  his  alleged 
indebtedness  to  Vondel's  "  Lucifer  "  being  said  to 
be  extreme  and  wilful,  while  an  ingenuous  critic 
would  see  here  nothing  more  than  the  natural  and 
legitimate  use  which  one  writer  would  make  of 
another,  writing  a  few  years  before  him  on  a  sim- 
ilar topic.  Moreover,  Milton's  plan  was  substan- 
tially perfected  long  before  the  appearance  of  "  Lu- 
cifer "  in  1654,  while  the  epic  of  the  Dutch  poet 
bears  on  but  a  small  portion  of  the  English  poem. 

Some  of  the  legitimate  Sources  of  the  epic  may 
be  studied. 

1.  The  first  was  Scripture,  especially  as  repre- 
sented in  the  history,  prophecy,  and  poetry  of  the 


178  Special  Discussions 

Old  Testament.  Here  he  had  a  spacious  field  and 
freely  used  it.  This  was,  partly,  because  of  his 
wide  acquaintance  with  Hebraic  and  Oriental 
studies ;  partly,  because  the  epic  he  was  writing 
was  characteristically  a  biblical  epic;  and  partly, 
also,  independently  of  these  considerations,  because 
he  found  in  the  Bible,  as  nowhere  else,  that 
wealth  and  aptness  of  poetic  imagery  of  which  he 
was  in  urgent  need.  The  most  hasty  reader  of  the 
poem  is  impressed  with  the  free  and  yet  reverent 
manner  in  which,  on  the  basis  of  some  sublime 
scene  in  Ezekiel  or  in  the  Apocalypse,  he  has  risen 
to  the  highest  summits  of  his  verse  and  produced 
poetic  effects  possible  by  no  other  agency.  Not 
only  does  Addison  in  the  Spectator  tell  us  of  the 
indebtedness  of  English  to  Hebrew  for  pathetic 
terms,  but  acknowledges  and  illustrates  it  by  way 
of  diction  and  structure  and  general  style,  and  with 
reference  to  what  Longinus  calls,  elevation  of 
sentiment. 

2.  Next  to  the  Bible,  the  Greek  and  Roman 
classics  furnished  Milton  with  the  suggestions  he 
was  seeking.  Nor  is  this  use  of  pagan  literature 
in  setting  forth  religious  truth  at  all  denied  or 
concealed.  From  the  first  of  his  eighteen  papers 
on  "  Paradise  Lost "  on  to  the  last,  Addison  is 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton— "Paradise  Lost "    1?9 

speaking  of  Homer  and  Vergil,  of  the  "  Iliad  " 
and  the  "yEneid,"  and  is  careful  to  show  that  Mil- 
ton resorts  to  them  with  a  settled  purpose  and  the 
better  to  compass  his  literary  ends.  It  must  be 
added,  however,  that  the  English  critic  is  also 
careful  to  show  that  of  the  three  epic  writers  Mil- 
ton takes,  the  precedence,  and  of  the  three  epics 
Milton's  is  the  greatest,  especially  in  its  grasp  and 
spirit.  Of  all  the  ancients  Homier  was  to  Milton 
the  first;  and,  when  outside  of  the  sphere  of  his 
own  nation  and  history,  he  was  more  at  home  at 
the  center  of  the  old  Greek  mythology  than  in  any 
other  region  open  to  his  imagination.  There  was 
something  in  the  Homeric  conception  that  attracted 
and  inspired  him  and  incited  him  to  his  best  work 
in  epic  verse. 

3.  An  additional  source  of  Milton's  epic  ma- 
terial was  found  in  general  history  and  letters.  It 
is  known  that  he  was  thoroughly  conversant  with 
the  earlier  history  of  England.  An  accomplished 
Hebrew  and  classical  scholar,  versed  also  in  the 
Dutch  and  Latin  and  other  North-  and  South- 
European  tongues,  a  devoted  student  from  the 
twelfth  year  of  his  age,  compassing  the  great  de- 
partments of  politics,  theology,  geography,  mythol- 
ogy, and  literature,  there  was  little  in  the  world's 


180  Special  Discussions 

history,  as  it  lay  before  him  in  open  record,  with 
which  he  did  not  acquaint  himself,  so  that,  when 
he  sat  down  to  write,  these  vast  resources  were  at 
hand  or  accessible.  It  was  thus,  as  Addison  tells 
us,  that  "  Milton's  genius,  which  was  so  great  in 
itself,  was  strengthened  by  all  the  helps  of 
learning." 

Moreover,  his  genius  retained  all  its  freshness 
while,  at  the  same  time,  making  a  normal  use  of 
every  form  of  fact  and  truth  coming  within  the 
scope  of  his  purpose.  Thus  to  utilize  all  acquired 
knowledge  and  still  to  exercise  one's  independent 
judgment  is  itself  an  evidence  of  genius.  It  is  a 
rare  illustration  of  acquisitive  and  original  power 
in  conjunction.  Exception  has  been  taken  by 
critics  that  we  have  in  "  Paradise  Lost  "  a  "  show 
of  learning,"  that  the  poet  would  have  us  know  by 
his  references  to  truth  and  fact  at  large  that  he 
had  compassed  the  circuit  of  human  knowledge  so 
that  nothing  remained  to  be  known.  A  careful 
study  of  Milton's  spirit  would  surely  correct  this 
hasty  conclusion,  by  which  it  would  appear  that, 
however  dogmatic  or  polemic  he  was  in  his  prose, 
he  is  notably  temperate  and  modest  in  his  verse. 
The  pervading  tone  of  his  great  epic  is  that  of 
lowliness  of  spirit  in  the  presence  of  God  and  the 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton — "Paradise  Lost"    181 

majestic  theme  he  is  discussing,  while  the  detailed 
allusions  so  often  made  to  the  facts  of  human 
knowledge  are  an  essential  part  of  his  plan  on  the 
literary  side  and  in  no  sense  adduced  to  give  the 
appearance  of  elaborate  learning.  A  poet  who 
begins  his  epics,  as  Milton  did,  with  an  invocation 
to  the  Spirit  to  instruct  him  in  his  ignorance  and 
illumine  him  in  his  darkness  is  not  the  man  to 
make  a  proud  exhibit  of  himself  on  any  side  of  his 
varied  attainment.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  there  are 
some  critics  whose  only  mission  is  negative  and" 
destructive,  and,  be  the  merit  what  it  may,  they 
will  find  sufficient  basis  for  their  chosen  work. 

As  to  the  epic  itself,  a  brief  discussion  is  now 
in  place.  That  it  has  defects  and  faults  no  con- 
scientious student  can  deny.  "  Spots  in  the  sun," 
as  Addison  called  them,  there  are,  and  Addison 
himself  admits  and  illustrates  them,  as  to  the 
scheme  of  the  poem,  its  character,  sentiments,  and 
diction.  A  few  of  these  may  be  cited.  The  suc- 
cesses of  Satan  and  his  allies  are  said  to  be  too 
prominent,  so  as  to  raise  the  question  as  to  whether 
Satan  may  not  be  the  proper  hero  of  the  poem,  as 
Dryden  maintained.  Some  of  the  details  of  the 
poem  as  to  sin  and  death  are  said  to  be  improb- 
able and  revolting.  The  digressions  are  held  to  be 


182  Special  Discussions 

too  frequent  and  conspicuous,  so  as  to  violate  the 
accepted  principle  as  to  episodes.  His  characters 
are  said  to  be  allegorical,  the  sentiments  too  pagan, 
and  his  diction  too  labored,  involved,  and  technical. 
There  are  two  defects  which  are  of  greater 
moment. 

1.  The  one  is  the  absence  of  sustained  passion. 
There  is  not  as  much  of  that  fire  and  fervid  force 
of  thought  and  language,  of  poetic  inspiration,  as 
we  expect  to  find  in  such  a  poem.    The  epic  is  too 
studied    and  methodical,   too    restrained    and   aca- 
demic; in  a  word,  too  Augustan  and  classical,  if 
not,  at  times,  conventional.     That  emotive  energy 
which  we  find  in  his  prose  is  not  marked.    Though 
the  general  movement  is   inspiring  and  there   are 
occasional  outbursts  of  passion,  the  passion  is  not 
continuous     and    accumulative,    as    in    "  Comus." 
This  is  especially  noticeable  after  the  second  book. 
It  could  thus  be  called  a  didactic  poem,  somewhat 
educational  in  type  and  impression,  the  vast  amount 
of  learning  it  displays  being  partly  responsible  for 
such  a    result.     The    interpretation  of   "  Paradise 
Lost  "  is  a  study  of  no  light  character. 

2.  Akin  to    this  is  a  second    defect  —  want  of 
flexibility,  mental  and  literary.     The  poem  to  this 
extent  is  not  popular  or  readable.     We  find  it  as 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton — "Paradise  Lost  "    183 

difficult  to  plod  through  its  twelve  books  as  through 
"  The  Faerie  Queene "  or  "Aurora  Leigh "  or 
"  The  Earthly  Paradise."  The  structure  and  style 
are  not  sufficiently  elastic.  There  is  too  little 
pliancy  of  idea  and  expression  to  sustain  the  read- 
er's interest,  not  enough  of  that  literary  alertness 
and  facile  fluency  that  entice  and  hold  the  atten- 
tion. At  times,  indeed,  we  find  ourselves  close  on 
the  borderland  of  prose.  It  is  to  this  that  Froude, 
in  his  "  Life  of  Bunyan,"  refers  when  he  says  that 
Milton  "  was  only  partially  emancipated  from  the 
bondage  of  the  letter."  The  epic  is  often  too  rigid 
and  unrelenting  to  commend  itself  to  the  average 
English  reader. 

1.  Turning  to  the  leading  merits  of  the  epic, 
we  note,  first,  the  scope  of  the  poem-,  the  greatness 
of  its  conception.  This  is  such  as  to  justify  his 
calling  his  epic  "  an  adventurous  song," 

"That  with  no  middle  [ordinary]  flight  intends  to  soar 
Above  the  Ionian  Mount,  while  it  pursues 
Things  unattempted  yet  in  prose  or  verse." 

It  is  thus  that  he  invokes  the  aid  of  the  Spirit  that 
he  may  rise  "to  the  height  of  this  great  argu- 
ment." Including,  as  it  does,  heaven,  earth,  and 
hell,  the  range  of  outlook  is  even  wider  than  that 
compassed  by  Dante  in  Paradise,  Purgatory,  and 


184  Special  Discussions 

Inferno.  In  fact,  the  area  is  infinity  itself,  and, 
as  such,  while  it  accounts  for  some  of  Milton's 
most  signal  defects  and  errors,  also  magnifies  the 
type  and  capacity  of  that  genius  that  could  con- 
struct an  epic  on  so  wide  a  scale  and  even  approx- 
imately realize  its  spacious  ideal.  We  have  here, 
if  nothing  else,  the  essence  of  creative  and  imag- 
inative verse,  of  epic  and  dramatic  effect  in  unison, 
in  that  the  poet's  plan  embraced  the  universe  of 
being  and  of  truth.  There  is  nothing  comparable 
to  this  in  Homer,  Vergil,  or  Lucan,  in  "  The  Cid  " 
or  the  "  Nibelungenlied  "  or  in  any  epic  poet  save 
the  author  of  the  "  Divina  Commedia."  It  is 
Pope's  "  Essay  on  Man  "  heightened  and  widened 
into  immensity.. 

2.  An  additional  feature  of  merit  is  seen  in  the 
variety  and  boldness  of  the  imagery,  as  found  in 
characters  and  scenes,  constituting  a  real  body  of 
dramatis  persona.  On  the  one  hand,  in  the  line 
of  the  personal  and  concrete,  are  the  Trinity  — 
God  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit;  Abdiel,  the  un- 
sinning  seraph ;  Uriel,  the  regent  of  the  sun ;  Ga- 
briel, the  guardian  of  Paradise;  Michael,  the  arch- 
angel; Raphael,  the  divine  messenger  to  Eden; 
Adam  and  Eve,  the  progenitors  of  the  race.  As 
exponents  of  evil,  we  see  Satan,  the  leader  of  his 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton — "Paradise  Lost9'    185 

rebel  hosts;  Beelzebub/ Moloch,  demos,  Astoreth, 
Dagon,  Rimmon,  Belial,  and  Azazel,  Satan's 
trusted  ally,  and  an  innumerable  host  of  fallen 
spirits.  In  the  line  of  the  more  impersonal  and 
abstract  are  Sin,  Death,  Chaos,  Night,  Pandemo- 
nium, The  Limbo  of  Vanity,  Hell,  Earth,  Heaven, 
the  Sea,  "  Gorgons  and  Hydras  and  Chimseras 
dire  " ;  Giants  and  Pygmies,  Cherubs  and  Seraphs, 
Dragons  and  Devils ;  War  in  Heaven  and  Lust  and 
Crime  on  Earth ;  and  "  the  waving,  fiery  sword  '' 
at  the  Gate  of  Eden,  as  the  banished  pair  go  forth. 
All  this  in  such  vividness  and  graphic  boldness  of 
character  and  scene,  of  place  and  time,  is  simply 
colossal,  supernal,  and  infernal  —  a  dramatic  epic 
of  the  universe  with  the  old  Persian  conception  of 
God  and  Satan  manifested  in  historical  and  biblical 
perspective.  It  is  the  Old  English  pagan  epic  of 
Beowulf  and  the  Dragon  reproduced  and  ennobled 
in  the  Modern  and  Christian  era  of  English  letters. 
3.  A  further  feature  is  the  suggestiveness  and 
stimulus  of  the  poem.  No  words  can  more  justly 
express  the  final  impressiveness  of  this  epic  than 
these.  No  one  can  read  it  in  the  spirit  in  which  it 
is  written  and  enter  at  all  into  what  it  is  and  what 
it  means  and  not  rise  from  the  reading  a  stronger 
man,  thinking  more  of  truth  and  duty  than  ever, 


18G  Special  Discussions 

more  firmly  resolved  than  ever  to  seek  and  diffuse 
and  defend  the  truth  and  to  express  more  and 
more  fully  its  leading  lesson,  that  obedience  to  the 
Divine  will  is  the  source  of  all  good.  Literature  is 
nothing  if  not  quickening  and  ennobling ;  poetry  is 
nothing  if  not  inspiring,  and  fails  of  its  end  if  it 
does  not  lift  the  life  of  the  reader  to  the  highest 
outlook  and  purpose.  Milton  was  more  than  an 
English  poet.  He  was  an  English  literary  force, 
doing  his  immediate  work  midway  between  Eliza- 
bethan and  Augustan  England,  but  doing  his  real 
work  for  all  times  and  all  peoples. 

Some  general  characteristics  of  Milton's  verse, 
especially  applicable  to  his  epics,  may  be  noticed. 

1.  The  first  is  its  distinctive  Christian  spirit. 
In  this  respect  the  poetry  is  but  the  expression  of 
the  poet's  personality.  Though  he  did  not  enter 
the  church  as  minister  or  member,  he  carried  his 
conscience  with  him  into  literature.  In  one  of  his 
prose  pamphlets,  in  speaking  of  his  literary  plans, 
he  says :  "  These  are  the  inspired  gifts  of  God 
....  to  cherish  in  a  people  the  seeds  of  virtue." 
He  began  his  poetic  career  with  a  paraphrase  of 
some  of  the  Psalms  and  verses  on  Christ's  Nativity. 
The  sonnets  follow,  full  of  moral  teaching.  "L' Alle- 
gro," "  II  Penseroso/'  and  "  Comus  "  are  as  nota- 


•Epic  Verse  of  Milton— "Paradise  Lost"    187 

ble  for  their  Christian  sentiment  as  for  their  lyric 
and  descriptive  beauty.  In  the  epics,  however,  and 
especially  in  "  Paradise  Lost,"  this  feature  is  con- 
spicuous. In  fine,  he  seems  to  have  regarded  poetry 
as  a  holy  calling,  and  aimed  to  be  what  he  said 
Spenser  was  —  "a  sage  and  serious  poet." 

Writing  to  Diodati,  he  gives  his  conception  of  a 
Christian  bard.  After  reluctantly  conceding  that 
some  poets  abused  their  trust,  he  adds :  "  But  the 
man  who  speaks  of  high  matters,  let  him  live 
sparely ;  let  herbs  afford  him  his  innocent  diet,  and 
let  clear  water  in  a  beechen  cup  stand  near  him. 
To  this  let  there  be  added  a  youth  chaste  and  free 
from  guilt ;  rigid  morals  and  hands  without  stain 
and  not  ashamed  to  venture  into  the  very  presence 
of  the  unoffended  God."  Knowing,  as  he  did,  that 
every  worthy  knight  swore  to  defend  the  interests 
of  truth  and  justice  and  chastity,  he  adds:  "  Every 
free  and  gentle  spirit  ought  to  be  born  a  knight," 
and  devote  his  days  to  the  defense  and  diffusion 
of  the  truth.  He  speaks  of  "  the  music  of  the 
spheres."  It  was  in  his  view  more  than  poetic 
imagery.  He  lived  as  if  he  often  heard  it  and  felt 
that  his  character  must  be  worthy  of  such  a  high 
privilege.  He  relied,  as  he  avows,  "  on  the  gra- 


188  Special  Discussions 

cious  aid  of  that  Eternal  Spirit  who  enriches  the 
mind  with  all  utterance  and  knowledge." 

In  all  this  Milton  was  a  true  successor  of  Csed- 
mon,  and  the  first  and  second  epic  poets  of  Eng- 
land are  alike  Christian.  Who  can  estimate  the 
dire  results  that  would  have  followed  had  not  Mil- 
ton been  what  he  was  and  done  what  he  did  in 
behalf  of  good  literature  in  the  profligate  days  of 
the  English  Restoration !  "  Nothing,"  says  South- 
ey,  "  was  ever  so  unearthly  as  the  poetry  of 
Milton." 

2.  The  second  characteristic  of  Milton's  verse 
is  its  sublimity.  "  Milton's  chief  talent,"  writes  Ad- 
dison,  "  lies  in  the  sublimity  of  his  thought." 
Present  as  this  feature  is  in  all  his  poems,  it  is 
naturally  most  evident  in  his  epics,  and  most  of  all, 
in  "  Paradise  Lost."  All  the  conditions  of  the  sub- 
lime'as  given  by  Longinus,  negative  and  positive, 
are  here  fulfilled.  According  to  the  great  Greek 
critic,  it  is  opposed  to  bombast,  false  passion  and 
puerility,  its  essentials  being  elevation  of  diction, 
sentiment,  and  spirit.  Aristotle  speaks  of  the  epic 
in  a  similar  manner,  as  having  unity,  complete- 
ness, and  gravity  of  action,  variety  and  fitness  of 
character,  clear  and  elevated  diction  and  pertinent 
figures.  In  each  of  these  several  particulars,  Milton 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton— -"Paradise  Lost "    189 

is  seen  to  comply  with  the  criteria  of  the  masters 
relative  to  that  which  is  sublime  and  chiefly  as  to 
what  is  called  elevation.  The  conception  and  con- 
struction and  unfolding  of  the  epic  are  all  on  a 
majestic  scale,  lifting  the  thought  and  feeling  of 
the  reader  above  all  that  is  earthy  and  trivial  to 
the  celestial  and  inspiring.  (<  The  sublimest  of 
men,"  says  Channing,  "  his  name  is  almost  identi- 
cal with  sublimity."  "  It  seems,"  write  the  broth- 
ers Hare,  "  that  nothing  could  dwell  in  this  mind 
but  what  was  grand  and  sterling."  He  had  what 
Arnold  calls  "  the  grand  style."  His  mental  and 
moral  constitution  were  great,  so  that  when  he 
wrote  most  naturally  he  wrote  inspiringly,  as 
Homer  and  Plato  did  among  the  Greeks.  The 
Miltonic  style  is  essentially  Homeric,  essentially 
elevated  and  impressive  —  an  epic  order  of  style 
by  way  of  distinction,  whether  in  verse  or  prose, 
the  best  example  extant  in  English  of  dignity  in 
literary  art. 

In  all  this  there  is  something  of  the  old  Puritan 
temper  and  habit,  that  "  intellectual  seriousness " 
that  marked  the  Cromwellian  era  of  our  native  lit- 
erature, degenerating,  at  times,  into  undue  severity 
of  manner  and  utterance,  but,  in  the  main,  ex- 


190  Special  Discussions 

pressed  in  normal  form  and  conducive  to  the  best 
results  in  church  and  state,  society  and  letters. 

3.  A  most  suggestive  additional  characteristic 
of  Milton's  verse,  had  we  time  to  discuss  it,  is 
found  in  the  union  of  epic  and  lyric  qualities  that 
he  so  successfully  effected,  the  practical  fusion  of 
sublimity  and  beauty  —  not  so  much  that  he 
passed  with  consummate  ease  from  the  graver 
strains  and  methods  of  heroic  verse  to  the  lighter 
strains  of  the  lyric,  as  that  he  unified  and  fused 
them  into  a  common  literary  product.  It  is  with 
this  in  mind  that  Seeley  writes,  that  "  Milton  is 
the  only  poetical  genius  which  has  yet  arisen  in 
the  Anglo-Saxon  family  combining,  in  Greek  per- 
fection, greatness  with  grace."  If  we  find  lyric 
sweetness  and  charm  in  his  epics,  we  find  epic  ele- 
vation and  grandeur  in  his  lyrics.  Here  we  see 
the  magnificent  measurement  of  his  genius,  the 
latitude  over  which  it  ranges,  the  height  to  which 
it  soars,  and  at  this  point,  at  least,,  he  was  superior 
to  his  great  dramatic  predecessor.  Milton  is  more 
uniformly  sublime  than  Shakespeare.  As  Thom- 
son sings : — • 

"  Is  not  each  great,  each  amiable  Muse 
Of  classic  ages  in  our  Milton  met, 
A  genius  universal  as  his  theme  J  " 


Epic  Verse  of  Milton — "Paradise  Lost  h    l9l 

It  is  Charles  Lamb  who  suggested  that,  as  a 
fitting  preparation  for  the  study  of  Milton,  "a  sol- 
emn cathedral  service  of  song  should  be  indulged 
in."  Such  a  service  would  be  equally  befitting  at 
the  close  of  such  a  study,  and  in  the  line  of  fer- 
vent gratitude  that  such  a  man  and  such  a  poet 
adorns  the  annals  of  English  letters — 

"  God-gifted   organ- voice   of   England — 
Milton,  a  name  to  resound  for  ages." 


IV 


THE  POETRY  OF  JOHN  KEATS 

WHEN  we  are  told  by  Lord  Houghton  that 
Keats  was  "born  in  the  upper  ranks  of  the  middle 
class  "  the  language  must  be  interpreted  with  a 
good  degree  of  charity,  in  that  he  was  in  reality 
the  son  of  an  English  hostler,  Thomas  Keats,  and 
born  in  Finsbury,  in  the  stable  of  Jennings,  his 
father's  employer,,  his  mother  being  the  daughter 
of  said  Jennings.  Still,  father  and  mother  alike 
are  reported  to  have  been  clever,  sensible,  and  up- 
right people,  good  specimens  of  the  English  yeo- 
manry, the  middle-folk  of  the  country,  even 
though  not  necessarily  of  the  "  upper  ranks."  Of 
an  Anglo-Celtic  stock,  he  inherited  his  impulsive 
nature  from  the  one  branch,  and  his  sober,  straight- 
forward habit  from  the  other,  and,  though  he 
came  into  the  world  prematurely  (October  31, 
1795)  he  came  legitimately,  and  under  fairly  fa- 
vorable auspices.  As  to  education,  Keats  was 
denied  the  privileges  of  university  training,  his 
father's  narrow  resources  rendering  this  impos- 
192 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  193 

sible,  even  though,  as  we  learn,  his  parents  were 
keenly  desirous  that  he  should  be  thoroughly 
taught,  if  not  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  then  at 
Harrow  or  one  of  the  great  English  secondary 
schools.  We  find  him,  in  due  time,  at  school  at 
Enfield,  under  the  care  of  a  clergyman  by  the 
name  of  Clarke,  the  same  school  to  which  after- 
ward his  younger  brothers  naturally  went.  His 
school  life,  as  far  as  the  records  go,  was  happy 
and  profitable.  A  sensitive,  high-spirited,  and 
whole-hearted  boy,  a  kind  of  acknowledged  cham- 
pion in  the  school,  and  yet  shy  and  tender  and 
easily  discouraged  with  himself  and  his  work,  he 
was  steadily  gathering  knowledge,  disciplining  his 
mental  faculties,  and  preparing  himself  for  his 
great  future  in  the  field  of  letters. 

Here,  again,  history  repeats  itself,  and  we  learn 
of  the  old  story  of  passionate  fondness  for  books, 
for  good  literature  wherever  found,  for  romance 
and  mythology,  while  he  was  student  enough  in 
the  sphere  of  classics  to  render  the  entire  "^Eneid  " 
into  prose.  Called  from  school  to  become  a  sur- 
geon's apprentice  at  the  neighboring  town  of  Ed- 
monton, he  still  loved  books  far  more  than  band- 
ages and  hospitals,  catching  some  of  his  best  in- 
spirations from  the  reading  of  "  The  Faerie 


194  Special  Discussions 

Queene "  and  shorter  poems  of  Spenser.  Thus 
we  learn  that  "  it  was  '  The  Faerie  Queene  '  that 
awakened  his  genius,"  his  poem  entitled  "  Imita- 
tion of  Spenser  "  evincing  this  pleasing  and  early 
dependence.  Even  though  completing  his  medical 
studies  and  passing  the  requisite  examination  for 
hospital  service,  his  purpose  was  still  literary, 
while  he  impatiently  awaited  the  opportunity  to 
realize  it.  Thus  from  1817  to  the  year  of  his 
death,  February  23,  1821,  his  poetic  work  went 
on,  impeded,  as  it  often  was,  by  increasingly  im- 
paired health  and  embittered  by  the  cruel  attacks 
of  the  critics.  English  criticism  has  rarely  gone 
to  greater  lengths  of  personality  and  coarse  abuse 
than  it  did  in  the  pages  of  Blackwood's  and  the 
Quarterly.  The  merciless  utterances  of  Lockhart, 
Wilson,  and  others  against  the  so-called  "  Cock- 
ney school "  of  poetry,  as  represented  in  Leigh 
Hunt  and  Keats,  and  the  equally  extreme  thrusts 
of  Gifford  and  his  colleagues,  seemed  to  have  no 
other  origin  than  a  malicious  desire  to  wound  the 
feelings  of  these  rising  poets.  It  is  to  the  lasting 
credit  of  Keats  that  under  the  lash  of  these  un- 
just attacks  he  could  say,  "  Praise  or  blame  has 
but  a  momentary  effect  on  the  man  whose  love  of 
beauty  in  the  abstract  makes  him  a  severe  critic 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  195 

of  his  own  works."  Naturally  mindful  of  the 
fact  that  his  work  had  in  it  some  essential  merit, 
he  may  be  pardoned  for  adding,  "  This  is  a  mere 
matter  of  the  moment ;  I  think  I  shall  be  among 
the  English  poets  after  my  death,"  a  prophecy 
fully  confirmed  by  the  appreciative  language  of 
Lowell,  "  Enough  that  we  recognize  in  Keats  that 
indispensable  newness  —  that  we  call  genius.  His 
poems  mark  an  epoch  in  English  poetry."  That 
he  was  wounded  by  these  criticisms,  however,  can- 
not be  doubted,  nor  would  it  have  been  natural  not 
to  have  been.  They  were  inflicted  purposely  as  a 
punishment,  and  not  at  all  on  behalf  of  the  cause 
of  good  letters  in  England,  and  the  punishment 
was  especially  felt  by  Keats's  sensitive  nature  as 
a  rising  and  an  aspiring  poet,  the  Sidney  Lanier 
of  his  time.  Nor  is  it  quite  satisfactory  or  fair  to 
charge  his  wounded  feelings,  as  Whipple  does,  to 
his  lack  of  force  and  courage  and  kindred  elements 
of  character.  "  Had  he  possessed  a  great  nature," 
says  Whipple,  "  he  would  not  have  been  wounded, 
though  all  the  critics  of  his  time  had  leagued 
against  him,  and  he  would  have  defied  them  as 
Milton  did."  Keats  and  Milton,  we  submit,  can- 
not be  tested  by  the  same  standards ;  and  if  we 
insist  on  so  testing  them,  we  must  urge  that,  as 


196  Special  Discussions 

Milton  was  of  too  tough  a  fiber  to  have  felt  hurt 
by  the  severest  onslaughts  of  the  critics,  Keats 
was  of  too  tender  a  fiber  not  to  have  felt  hurt.  In 
the  case  of  the  two  there  exists  simply  a  radical 
difference  of  character,  and  each  must  have  its 
place  and  value. 

If  we  inquire  as  to  the  actual  amount  of  Keats's 
poetic  product,  it  cannot  be  said  to  have  been 
large,  nor  in  his  brief  life  of  twenty-five  years 
could  it  have  been  so  without  unwonted  mental 
development.  The  classification  of  his  verse  given 
us  by  Arnold  is  as  follows :  the  volumes  of  1817, 
including  his  earlier  poems ;  "  Endymion,"  his 
longest  poem ;  the  volume  of  1820,  including  his 
more  important  additional  poems,  such  as  "  La- 
mia "  and  "  Isabella " ;  and,  finally,  his  post- 
humous poems.  An  equally  just  classification 
would  be :  his  longer  poems,  such  as  "  The  Eve  of 
Saint  Agnes  "  and  "  Hyperion  " ;  and  his  shorter 
poems,  including  odes,  epistles,  and  lyric  sketches, 
such  as  the  lines  "  On  a  Grecian  Urn  "  and  u  The 
Eve  of  Saint  Mark."  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the 
range  of  his  poetic  power  was  limited  practically 
to  the  lyric  and  descriptive.  Poetry  of  the  epic 
order  is,  indeed,  seen  in  "  Hyperion "  and  some 
shorter  selections,  and  historical  verse  of  the  dra- 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  197 

matic  order  is  seen  in  "  Otho "  and  "  King 
Stephen,"  but  his  talent  was  still  of  the  idyllic 
type,  and  his  success  was  within  that  special 
sphere.  His  poetic  power  as  an  evidence  of 
mental  endowment  was  not  continuous  enough  to 
meet  the  highest  conditions  of  either  heroic  or 
histrionic  verse,  nor  was  there  any  promise,  at 
the  time  of  his  premature  death,  of  any  larger  re- 
sults in  these  directions.  As  fond  as  he  was  of 
the  mind  and  art  of  Homer,  his  gift  was  less 
Homeric  than  Theocritean  or  Sapphic.  Though 
he  wrote  to  his  friend,  "  One  of  my  ambitions  is 
to  make  as  great  a  revolution  in  modern  dramatic 
writing  as  Kean  has  done  in  acting,"  he  did  not 
make,  nor  could  he  have  made,  any  such  "  revo- 
lution." The  needed  gifts  were  not  his. 

In  noting,  therefore,  the  Special  Features  of  the 
verse  of  Keats  we  shall  have  primary  reference  to 
his  shorter  poems. 

1.  The  suggestion  that  needs  emphasis  is  the 
attempt  that  he  made,  and  a  partially  successful 
one,  to  rebuke  and  correct  the  poetic  formalism 
of  eighteenth-century  verse,  in  favor  of  a  partial 
restoration,  at  least,  of  earlier  Elizabethan  meth- 
ods. It  is  this  that  his  biographer,  Colvin,  has  in 
mind  when  he  says,  "  The  element  in  which  his 


198  Special  Discussions 

poetry  moves  is  liberty,  the  consciousness  of  re- 
lease from  those  conventions  and  restraints  by 
which  the  art  had  for  the  last  hundred  years  been 
hampered."  It  is  thus,  also,  that  Matthew 
Arnold  speaks  appreciatingly  of  him  as  "  an 
Elizabethan  born  too  late."  Lowell  tells  us  that 
we  see  in  his  verse  "  that  reaction  against  the 
barrel-organ  style  which  had  been  reigning  by  a 
kind  of  sleepy  divine  right  for  half  a  century."  In 
a  word,  we  find  Keats  to  be,  in  this  respect,  a 
veritable  innovator  or  renovator,  calling  his  coun- 
try back  to  primary  poetic  principles,  to  Chaucer, 
Spenser,  Shakespeare,  and  Milton;  to  truth  and 
life ;  to  physical  nature  and  human  nature ;  to  the 
simple  as  a  protest  against  the  artificial.  This, 
in  itself,  entitles  Keats  to  an  important  place  in 
the  developing  history  of  English  verse  —  a  work 
quite  as  important  as  anything  he  did  in  the  way 
of  writing  poetry  proper.  His  effort  to  revolu- 
tionize and  refresh  English  poetry  was  as  credit- 
able to  his  literary  thought  and  foresight  as  it 
was  to  the  future  fortunes  of  English  letters.  It 
was  this  conception  of  what  poetry  ought  to  be 
and  this  purpose  to  secure  it  that  so  attracted  him 
to  Burns  and  Wordsworth,  as  he  discerned  in  them 
Jx>th  the  presence  of  genuine  poetic  impulse, 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats    .  199 

Hence  his  name  cannot  be  overlooked  in  any  true 
account  of  the  Romantic  revival  in  English  verse 
at  the  opening  of  the  last  century.  It  is  with 
his  eye  on  the  Elizabethan  past  and  the  stilted  af- 
fectations of  Augustan  days  that 'he  wrote  in  the 
language  of  satire,  in  "  Sleep  and  Poetry  " : — 

"  Beauty  was  awake ! 

Why  were  ye  not  awake?    But  ye  were  dead 
To  things  ye  knew  not  of  —  were  closely  wed 
To  musty  laws  lined  out  with  wretched  rule 
And  compass  vile:  so  that  ye  taught  a  school 
Of  dolts  to  smoothe,  inlay,  and  clip,  and  fit, 
Till,  like  the  certain  wands  of  Jacob's  wit, 
Their  verses  tallied.    Easy  was  the  task : 
A  thousand  handicraftsmen  wore  the  mask 
Of  Poesy." 

The  evident  Proofs  of  this  higher  conception  of 
the  spirit  and  office  of  verse  are  worthy  of  note. 

(a)  His  love  of  nature,  and  outdoor  life,  a  fea- 
ture common  to  his  poems,  is  seen  'in  such  ex- 
amples as  the  "  Ode  to  a  Nightingale,"  "  To 
Autumn,"  "  The  Thrush,"  "On  May-Day," 
"  Walking  in  Scotland,"  "  Staffia,"  "  On  the  Sea," 
and  "The  Human  Seasons."  His  early  life  at 
Enfield  and  Edmonton,  his  later  life  at  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  at  Margate,  Canterbury,  Hampstead,  Ox- 
ford, and  Teignmouth,  and  his  memorable  tours 
through  the  Scottish  Highlands  and  the  English 


200  Special  Discussions 

lakes  awakened  and  deepened  this  love  of  natural 
scenery  until  it  controlled  him,  breaking  forth  in 
manifold  lyric  forms,  and  coloring  with  a  rich  and 
rare  radiance  all  the  products  of  his  pen.  One 
has  but  to  attempt  to  cull  a  few  choice  passages 
of  this  description  from  his  verse  to  see,  at  once, 
that  the  selection  is  invidious,  and  that  the  poetry, 
from  first  to  last,  is  saturated  with  the  freshness 
of  the  fields  and  hills.  We  know  of  no  English 
poet  who  more  beautifully  touches  upon  natural 
scenery  than  he,  or  more  skillfully  condenses  into 
a  line  or  a  paragraph  the  essential  elements  of  a 
landscape.  The  dedicatory  sonnet  to  Leigh  Hunt, 
at  the  very  opening  of  his  verse,  is  full  of  these 
reflections  on  "  early  morn  "  and  "  smiling  day  " 
and  "  pleasant  trees,"  his  first  poem  beginning, 

"I  stood  tiptoe  on  a  little  hill," 

in  which  poem  we  have  that  exquisite  description 
of  dewdrops : 

"  those  starry  diadems 
Caught  from  the  early  sobbing  of  the  morn." 

Equally  exquisite  is  the  poetic  touch,  as  he  writes 

of 

"  the  moon  lifting  her  silver  rim 
Above  a  cloud,  and  with  a  gradual  swim 
Coming  into  the  blue  with  all  her  light." 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  201 

So,  in  his  sonnet  "  To  a  Friend  who  sent  me  some 
Roses,"  he  sings  : — 

"  As  late  I  rambled  in  the  happy  fields, 
What  time  the  skylark  shakes  the  tremulous  dew 
From  his  lush  clover  covert." 

So,  in  his  sonnet  on  "  Solitude" : — 

"  Let  me  thy  vigils  keep 

'Mongst  boughs  pavilioned,  where  the  deer's  swift  leap 
Startles  the  wild  bee  from  the  foxglove  bell." 

So,  elsewhere,  he  lovingly  writes : — 

"To  one  who  has  been  long  in  city  pent, 
'Tis  very  sweet  to  look  into  the  fair 
And  open  face  of  heaven  —  to  breathe  a  prayer 
Full  in  the  smile  of  the  blue  firmament." 

In  his  poem  "  Sleep  and  Poetry  "  we  find  some  of 
these  choice  passages;  as, — 

"  Life  is  but  a  day ; 

A  fragile  dewdrop  on  its  perilous  way 
From  a  tree's  summit.  .  .  . 
Life  is  the  rose's  hope  while  yet  unblown; 
The  reading  of  an  ever-changing  tale; 
The  light  uplifting  of  a  maiden's  veil; 
A  pigeon  tumbling  in  clear  summer  air; 
A  laughing  schoolboy,  without  grief  or  care, 
Riding  the  springy  branches  of  an  elm." 

So,  in  describing  some  quiet  retreat,  he  says : — 

"  Let  there  nothing  be 

More  boisterous  than  a  lover's  bended  knee; 
Naught  more  ungentle  than  the  placid  look 


202  Special  Discussions 

Of  one  who  leans  upon  a  closed  book; 
Naught  more  untranquil  than  the  grassy  slopes 
Between  two  hills." 

So,  the  verse  runs  on  in  sweetest  measure,  until 
we  see,  beyond  all  doubt,  that  Keats  knew  Nature 
thoroughly  and  loved  her,  and  at  times  embodied 
his  love  in  lines  as  beautiful  as  are  found  in  Eng- 
lish verse.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that,1  deep 
and  strong  as  was  this  love,  he  never  passed  to 
the  pantheistic  extreme  of  confounding  God  and 
nature,  or  the  equally  dangerous  anthropotheistic 
extreme  of  confounding  man  and  nature,  but 
viewed  each  in  its  place  and  all  as  related  in  the 
great  unity  and  harmony  of  the  world.  "  Scenery 
is  fine,"  he  wrote,  "  but  human  nature  is  finer. 
The  sward  is  richer  for  the  tread  of  a  real  ner- 
vous English  foot ;  the  eagle's  nest  is  finer  for  the 
mountaineer  having  looked  into  it."  So,  he 
wrote  in  "  Endymion  "  : — 

"  Who,  of  men,  can  tell 
That  flowers  would  bloom — 
If -human  souls  would  never  kiss  and  greet?'' 


So,  in  his  poem  on  "  The  Human  Seasons  " : — 

"  Four  seasons  fill  the  measure  of  the  year ; 
There  are  four  seasons  in  the  mind  of  man." 

So,  in  the  midst  of  his  rapturous    enjoyments  of 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  203 

nature,    as    he    describes    them    in    "  Sleep    and 
Poetry,"  he  writes  : — 

"And  can  I  ever  bid  these  joys  farewell? 
Yes,  I  must  pass  them  for  a  nobler  life, 
Where  I  may  find  the  agonies,  the  strife 
Of  human  hearts." 

He  is  thus  at  the  same  time  the  poet  of  man  and 
of  nature,  and  guards  himself  carefully  against 
the  worship  of  either  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other. 
(b)  An  additional  proof  of  Keats's  successful 
efforts  to  restore  a  better  literary  order  is  found 
in  what  may  be  called  his' poetic  spirit,  the  poetic 
sense  inherent  in  the  genuine  poet,  and  distin- 
guishing him  thus  from  the  mere  verbal  versifier. 
Thus,  he  says,  "  I  find  I  cannot  do  without  poetry 
—  without  eternal  poetry."  He  has  often  and 
rightly  been  called  a  poet  of  classical  taste  and 
art,  aiming  to  reproduce,  in  every  legitimate  way, 
the  beauty  and  literary  technique  of  the  old  Greek 
school;  but  this  is  not  all.  He  evinces  the  spirit 
as  well  as  the  art  of  verse,  the  unstudied  impulses 
of  the  ingenuous  bard  as  well  as  the  more  aesthetic 
correctness  of  the  schools.  Even  the  Edinburgh 
reviewers  forgot,  for  a  while,  their  malicious 
work,  and  conceded  that  he  had  in  him  "  a  native 
relish  for  poetry,"  confirming  the  truthfulness  of 


204  Special  Discussions 

Keats 's  own  statement  that  he  would  write  poetry 
"  from  the  mere  yearning  and  fondness  he  had 
for  the  beautiful."  One  of  the  clearest  evidences 
of  this  poetic  spirit  is  seen  in  the  rich  variety  of 
meters  that  we  find  in  his  verse,  as  if  he  must  run 
up  and  down  the  entire  gamut  of  verse-forms  in 
order  to  express  in  fitting  manner  the  wealth  of 
poetic '  life  that  was  in  him.  Hence  we  have 
the  couplet,  as  in  "  Endymion  "  -and  "  Lamia  " ; 
blank  verse,  as  in  "  Hyperion " ;  the  eight-line 
stanza,  as  in  "  Isabella " ;  the  Spenserian  stanza, 
as  in  "  The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes " ;  the  ten-line 
stanza,  as  in  the  "  Ode  to  a  Nightingale " ;  the 
eleven-line  stanza,  as  "  To  Autumn  "-  -  in  fact,  all 
varieties  of  stanza  and  line  in  rich  and  ever- 
changing  form,  so  as  to  suit  the  structure  to  the 
sense,  catch  the  eye  and  ear  and  taste  of  the  read- 
er, break  the  monotony  of  the  lines,  and,  in  fact, 
fill  the  poetry  with  the  charm  and  potency  of  the 
imagination  in  active  exercise. 

A  still  more  satisfactory  evidence  of  this  nat- 
uralness is  in  the  subject-matter  of  the  poetry  it- 
self, especially  in  the  lyric  forms,  and  in  those 
short  and  exquisite  snatches  of  song  for  which  he 
is  so  justly  noted.  Here,  as  in  Spenser  and  Mil- 
ton, it  is  the  brief  idyllic  passages  of  the  shorter 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  205 

poems  that  most  interest  us,  and  on  which  we  are 
willing  to  rest  the  reputation  of  the  poet.  Noth- 
ing more  essentially  poetic  can  be  found  in  Eng- 
lish verse  than  some  of  these  outbursts,  as  in 
"  The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes,"  "  Fancy,"  "  The  Eve 
of  Saint  Mark,"  and  "Walking  in  Scotland." 
Those  passages  already  adduced  to  show  his  pas- 
sionate love  of  nature  confirm  this  view,  so  that 
this  poetic  sentiment  or  sense  permeates  and  gov- 
erns the  verse.  Thus  in  the  opening  of  "  Endy- 


"  A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  forever ; 
Its  loveliness  increases." 

So,  again : — 

"The  earth  is  glad:  the  merry  lark  has  poured 
His  early  song  against  yon  breezy  sky, 
That  spreads  so  clear  o'er  our  solemnity." 

And,  again,  he  writes  of  the  poet,  who 

"  Sang  [his]  story  up  into  the  air, 
Giving  it  universal  freedom." 

So,  in  "  Isabella,"  he  describes  the  love  of  Isabella 
and  Lorenzo: — 

"  With  every  morn  their  love  grew  tenderer, 

With  every  eve  deeper  and  tenderer  still 

He  knew  whose  gentle  hand  was  at  the  latch, 
Before  the  door  had  given  her  to  his  eyes." 


206  Special  Discussions 

So,  in  the  "  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn  " : — 

"  Heard  melodies  are  sweet,  but  those  unheard 
Are  sweeter." 

In  his  exquisite  "  Faery  Song,"  as  in  "  Fancy," 
we  have  an  example  of  the  lightness  and  delicacy 
of  Keats's  poetic  touch : — 

"  Shed  no  tear  —  O  shed  no  tear ! 
The  flower  will  bloom  another  year. 
Weep  no  more  —  O  weep  no  more! 
Young  buds  sleep  in  the  root's  white  core. 
Dry  your  eyes  —  O  dry  your  eyes, 
For  I  was  taught  in  paradise 
To  ease  my  breast  of  melodies — 
Shed  no  tear." 

So,  opens  "  The  Eve  of  Saint  Mark  "  :— 

"Upon  a  Sabbath  day  it  fell; 
Twice  holy  was  the  Sabbath  bell, 
That  called  the  folk  to  evening  prayer. 

Twice  holy  was  the  Sabbath  bell : 
The  silent  streets  were  crowded  well 
With  staid  and  pious  companies, 
Warm  from  their  fireside  orat'ries ; 
And  moving,  with  demurest  air, 
To  evensong,  and  vesper  prayer. 
Each  arched  porch,   and  entry  low, 
Was  filled  with  patient  folk  and  slow, 
With  whispers  hush,  and  shuffling  feet, 
While  played  the  organ  loud  and  sweet. 

The  bells  had  ceased,  the  prayer  begun, 
And  Bertha  had  not  yet  half  done 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  207 

A  curious  volume,  patched  and  torn, 
That  all  day  long,  from  earliest  morn, 
Had  taken  captive  her  two  eyes, 
Among  its  golden  broideries." 

This  is  poetry  in  form  and  essence.  Taste,  feel- 
ing, imagination,  and  inspiration  are  all  combined 
to  make  up  a  poetic  product  as  impressive  as  it  is 
beautiful,  entitling  its  author  to  high  rank  among 
our  native  English  lyrists.  To  this  extent,  at  least, 
the  poetry  of  Keats  is  possessed  of  the  inner  prin- 
ciple of  life  and  rhythmic  movement ;  free  and 
natural,  sympathetic  with  its  diversified  themes, 
and  thus  definitely  aiding  that  great  Romantic  re- 
vival which  aimed  to  break  away  from  old  restric- 
tions into  a  larger  literary  freedom. 

This  is,  perhaps,  Keats's  greatest  feature  as  a 
poet,  the  explanation  of  his  best  work  and  the 
ground  of  his  claim  to  permanent  poetic  repute, 
that  he  had  a  spirit  responsive  to  beauty,  quickly 
perceiving  and  acknowledging  it  and  diffusing  its 
'influence  and  charm  wherever  he  went.  As  has 
been  said,  poetry  was  with  him  "  a  philosophy  and 
a  religion."  His  theory  of  life  was  based  upon  it, 
and  he  never  disconnected  it,  as  Byron  and  others 
did,  from  truth  and  goodness  and  love.  "  Beauty 
is  Truth,  and  Truth  is  Beauty"  was  his  creed,  as 


208  Special  Discussions 

he  insisted  that  it  was  through  beauty  and  love 
that  the  two  worlds  of  sense  and  spirit  were  united 
and  together  worked  in  perfect  harmony  for  the 
realization  of  the  highest  ends  of  man.  It  was 
because  he  saw  this  artistic  principle  in  Greek  art 
and  letters  that  he  was  so  attracted  to  Homer  and 
the  classical  mythology,  even  though  he  knew  but 
little  of  the  Greek  language  as  a  study  of  the 
schools.  When  we  are  told  that  Ruskin  so  appre- 
ciated his  poetic  work  as  to  regard  it  a  model  the 
explanation  is  found  in  the  fact  that  Ruskin  found 
in  Keats's  verse  the  satisfaction  of  his  sense  of 
form  and  love  of  the  beautiful.  It  is  this,  also, 
that  explains  the  avowed  indebtedness  of  Tenny- 
son and  the  later  Victorian  poetry  to  Keats  in 
that  he,  most  of  all,  embodied  in  his  verse  this 
central  aesthetic  principle  and  inspired  others  to 
attempt  to  secure  and  express  it,  this  inspiration 
definitely  marking  the  "  new  poetry  "  of  life  from 
the  older  verse  of  formalism  and  correctness. 
Hence  Saintsbury,  in  his  latest  work  on  Victorian 
authors,  speaks  of  Keats  as  a  "  germinal "  poet, 
and  adds  that  "  he  is  the  father  directly  or  at 
short  stages  of  descent  of  every  worthy  English 
poet  born  within  the  present  century.  He  begat 
Tennyson,  and  Tennyson  begat  all  the  rest."  In 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  209 

this  respect  he  accomplished  more  after  his  death 
than  in  his  life,  or  rather  lived  again  and  to  great- 
er purpose  in  the  work  of  the  poetic  disciples 
whom  he  influenced. 

2.  Keats's  relation  to  other  English  poets,  ante- 
cedent and  contemporary,  is  a  subject  of  interest 
to  every  student  of  his  verse.  First  of  all,  to 
Spenser,  partly  because  he  was  Spenser,  and 
partly  because  of  his  place  as  one  of  the  great 
Elizabethan,  poets,  and  thus  exponential  of  a  gen- 
uine poetic  life  and  work.  As  we  have  seen,  one 
of  his  earliest  poems  was  entitled  "  Imitation  of 
Spenser,"  referring  to  the  stanza  and  spirit  of  the 
epic  poet.  One  of  his  sonnets  is  written  in  honor 
of  him.  In  some  of  his  choicest  poems,  as  in  "  The 
Eve  of  Saint  Agnes,"  he  uses  the  Spenserian 
stanza.  In  his  "  Specimen  of  an  Induction  to  a 
Poem,"  he  calls,  him  "  the  great  bard,"  and  invokes 
his  "  gentle  spirit  to  hover  nigh  [your]  daring 
steps  "  as  a  poet.  So,  as  to  Milton,  whom  he  rev- 
erently calls  "  Chief  of  organic  numbers,  Old 
Scholar  of  the  Spheres,"  while  all  critics  have  no- 
ticed the  marked  influence  of  the  Miltonic  diction, 
especially  that  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  on  the  poetry 
of  Keats,  and  chiefly  as  seen  in  "  Endymion  "  and 
"  Hyperion."  So,  as  to  Chaucer,  back  to  whom 


210  Special  Discussions 

all  later  genuine  English  poets  were  wont  to 
look.  He  introduces  his  beautiful  poem  on  "  Sleep 
and  Poetry  "  by  a  quotation  from  Chaucer,  while 
here  and  there  are  evident  traces  in  diction  of  the 
early  study  of  "  The  Canterbury  Tales  "  and  other 
poems  of  the  great  Middle  English  bard.  That  he 
loved  the  poetry  of  Shakespeare  goes  without  say- 
ing. "  Thank  God,"  he  writes,  "  I  can  read  and, 
perhaps,  understand  Shakespeare  to  his  depths  " ; 
while  the  motto  or  poetic  heading  of  "  Endymion," 
"  The  stretched  meter  of  an  antique  song,"  is 
taken  from  the  seventeenth  of  Shakespeare's  son- 
nets. He  calls  him  "  that  warm-hearted  Shake- 
speare." So,  as  to  Chapman,  the  translator  of 
Homer ;  Browne,  the  author  of  the  "  Pastorals  " ; 
Chatterton,  the  "  marvelous  boy " ;  Landor,  the 
classical  English  writer ;  Leigh  Hunt,  and,  also, 
Shelley,  who  rests  with  Keats  in  the  same  God's 
acre  outside  the  city  of  Rome,  "  united,"  as  Devey 
says,  "  in  the  same  belief  in  human  perfectibility 
and  drawing  their  inspiration  from  the  same 
fountain,  the  undying  beauty  of  the  world's  youth 
as  imaged  in  the  creations  of  antique  Greece,"  and 
yet  so  unlike  in  their  poetic  relationship,  aims, 
and  work.  Shelley's  elegy,  "Adonais,"  is  a  suffi- 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  211 

cient  proof  of  their  devoted  personal  attachment, 
and 

"  till  the  Future  dares 

Forget  the  Past,  his  fate  and  fame  shall  be 
An  echo  and  a  light  unto  Eternity." 

In  the  light  of  this  long  list  of  English  authors  to 
whom  Keats  stands  related,  and  often  indebted,  it 
is  to  be  noted  that  there  was  on  his  part  nothing 
in  the  line  of  slavish  imitation.  No  English  poet 
has  been  less  servilely  dependent  on  others  than 
he.  To  everything  he  read  and  heard  he  gave  the 
free  impress  of  his  own  spirit,  while  he  is  ever  glad 
to  acknowledge  the  fact  that  there  had  lived  such 
poets  as  Spenser  and  Milton,  to  whom,  as  to 
superior  and  puissant  spirits,  he  gladly  and  safely 
resorted  for  needed  poetic  stimulus. 

3.  All  gifts  and  excellencies  conceded,  how- 
ever, Keats  had  his  personal  and  poetic  limita- 
tions. He  was  in  no  sense  a  great  thinker  in 
verse ;  in  no  sense  a  bold  and  successful  reorgan- 
izer  of  important  literary  movements,  despite  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  valuable  agent  with  others  in 
the  poetic  revival  of  the  century.  "  The  faults  of 
Keats's  poetry,"  writes  Lowell,  "  are  obvious 
enough,  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  he  died 
at  twenty-five  and  that  he  offends  by  superabun- 


Special  Discussions 


dance  and  not  poverty.  That  he  was  overlan- 
guaged  at  first  there  can  be  no  doubt."  "  Whether 
Keats  was  original  or  not,"  he  adds,  "  I  do  not 
think  it  useful  to  discuss  until  it  has  been  settled 
what  originality  is.  Enough  that  we  recognize  in 
him  that  indefinable  manner  and  unexpectedness 
which  we  call  genius.  No  doubt  there  is  some- 
thing tropical  in  his  sudden  maturity,  but  it  was 
maturity,  nevertheless."  Here  we  see  Lowell 
conceding  the  faults  of  Keats  and,  in  a  genuinely 
charitable  spirit,  seeking  to  minimize  their  force. 
To  our  mind,  his  greatest  fault  was  the  close  con- 
nection which  his  poetry  evinces  of  excellence  and 
defect,  so  as  to  mar,  at  times,  any  unity  of  good 
result.  It  is  thus  that  Colvin,  in  speaking  of 
"  Endymion,"  writes,  "  Beauties  and  faults  are  so 
bound  up  together  that  a  critic  may  well  be  struck 
almost  as  much  by  one  as  by  the  other."  So, 
Devey  writes,  '  '  Endymion  '  contains  passages 
which  would  do  honor  to  the  Elizabethan  poets, 
with  much  commonplace  which  would  disgrace 
Blackmore."  The  same  is  true  of  "  Hyperion  " 
and  "  Lamia,"  and  of  many  of  his  minor  poems, 
as  to  the  conspicuous  absence  of  sustained  excel- 
lence, so  that  the  sympathetic  reader  is,  at  times, 
startled  and  shocked  by  the  suddenness  and  vio- 


The  Poetry  of  John  Keats  213 

lence  of  the  contrasts.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons, 
undoubtedly,  why  his  longest  poem,  "  Endymion," 
containing  some  rare  poetic  passages,  has  not  been 
more  widely  read  and  appreciated,  its  too  frequent 
lapses  from  the  poet's  high  standard  discouraging 
the  general  student  and  reader.  Here  again,  how- 
ever, we  might  assume  Lowell's  more  charitable 
view  and  insist  that  the  principle  in  question 
proves  too  much  —  that  if  we  apply  it  severely  as 
a  specific  principle  of  poetic  criticism,  most  of  our 
already  accepted  conclusions  must  be  greatly  mod- 
ified. Thus,  it  might  be  argued  that  "  The  Faerie 
Queene"  and  "Paradise  Lost"  and, "The  Ex- 
cursion "  and  "  Lalla  Rookh "  and  "  Aurora 
Leigh "  and  "  Evangeline "  evince  a  similar  ab- 
rupt descent  from  higher  to  lower  levels,  from  the 
sublime  to  the  indifferent ;  the  only  difference 
being,  perchance,  that  .this  unheralded  descent  is 
oftener  made  by  Keats  than  by  Spenser,  Milton, 
Wordsworth,  Moore,  Mrs.  Browning,  and  Long- 
fellow. In  any  case,  however,  it  is  a  fault,  its 
character  depending  on  its  frequency  and  sudden- 
ness and  on  the  manner  in  which  in  every  instance 
the  poet  recovers  himself  and  rises,  again  to  loftier 
levels  of  wider  outlook  and  more  inspiring  in- 
fluences. 


214  Special  Discussions 

It  is  in  his  minor  poems  that  his  special  gifts 
appear.  It  is  of  his  "  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn  "  and 
"  La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci "  that  Saintsbury 
says,  "  He  need  to  have  written  nothing  but  these 
two  to  show  himself  not  merely  an  exquisite  poet, 
but  a  leader  of  English  poetry  for  many  a  year, 
almost  for  many  a  generation  to  come."  It  is  in 
referring  to  his  premature  death  and  to  his  burial 
at  Rome  and,  especially,  to  his  own  prepared  epi- 
taph, "  Here  lies  ftne  whose  name  was  writ  in 
water,"  that  Saintsbury  beautifully  adds,  "  Pos- 
terity has  agreed  with  him  that  it  was  written  in 
water,  but  in  the  water  of  life."  Lovely  and  benig- 
nant in  character,  unselfishly  thoughtful  of  the  in- 
terests of  others,  gifted  with  the  essential  spirit  of 
poetry,  and  of  quite  too  sensitive  a  fiber  to  bear 
the  struggle  of  this  rude  world,  his  clear  and  pure 
personality  is  a  perpetual  blessing  to  the  English 
nation,  and  the  verse  he  wrote  a  beautiful  reflec- 
tion of  the  strength  and  sweetness  of  his  life.  In 
the  "  Letters "  of  Keats,  recently  published,  this 
attractive  personal  side  of  his  career  is  brought 
more  prominently  to  view,  as  is  also  his  work  as 
a  writer  of  miscellaneous  English  prose. 


THE  POETRY  OF  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

UPON  the  details  of  Matthew  Arnold's  life  it  is 
not  necessary  for  us  to  dwell,  nor  is  it  indeed  pos- 
sible to  give  such  details  at  any  length,  his  pub- 
lished "  Letters,"  edited  by  Russell,  and  his  vari- 
ous works  giving  us  the  only  authentic  facts  and 
incidents  of  his  life.  Born  in  Rugby,  December 
22,  1822,  the  son  of  the  famous  educator  and  au- 
thor —  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold,  Head  Master  of 
Rugby  —  and  dying  in  Liverpool,  April  13,  1888, 
he  lived  to  the  full  maturity  of  his  mental  and 
bodily  powers,  though  not  in  any  accepted  sense  to 
the  limit  of  old  age.  Educated  at  Rugby,  Win- 
chester, and  Oxford,  and  graduated  from  Oxford 
with  literary  distinction,  we  find  him  at  length,  an 
inspector  of  British  schools,  twice  sent  by  the 
British  Government  on  educational  missions  to  the 
schools  of  the  Continent  in  Germany  and  Holland, 
and  in  1857,  when  but  thirty-five  years  of  age, 
professor  of  poetry  at  Oxford.  These  few  facts 
may  be  said  to  indicate  the  character  and  general 
215 


216  Special  Discussions 

course  of  his  life,  it  being  emphasized  that,  from 
first  to  last,  whatever  his  specific  mission  —  educa- 
tional, official,  or  professional  —  literature  was 
dominant  over  all  and  the  elevation  of  Modern 
English  and  general  letters  the  final  purpose  of  his 
effort.  Devoted  as  he  was  to  the  cause  of  popu- 
lar education  at  home  and  on  the  Continent,  it 
was  with  primary  reference  to  literary  progress 
that  he  insisted  on  specific  'methods  of  teaching 
and  training.  Devoted  also  as  he  was  to  the  study 
of  theology  and  kindred  branches,  he  was  a  man 
of  letters  first  and  a  theologian  afterward,  giving 
us  in  such  works  as  his  "  Literature  and  Dogma," 
"  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,"  "  God  and  the 
Bible,"  and  "  Last  Essays  on  the  Church  and  Re- 
ligion "  the  reflections  and  conclusions  of  an  au- 
thor on  the  great  questions  of  God  and  man  and 
life  and  death  and  immortality. 

The  discussion  of  Arnold's  prose  we  have  al- 
ready given,1  a  sphere  of  effort  to  which  most  of 
the  best  of  his  life  was  devoted,  either  as  regards 
the  time  spent  therein  or  the  definite  results  se- 
cured in  the  line  of  literary  reputation.  Whatever 
the  amount  and  the  value  of  his  verse  may  be,  as 

1  Studies  in  Literature  and  Style.  New  York :  A.  C. 
Armstrong  and  Son.  1890. 


The  Poetry  of  Mattheiv  Arnold  217 

we  shall  study  it,  his  fame  mainly  rests  on  his 
prose  and,  in  prose  itself,  in  the  form  of  literary 
criticism.  Not  that  he  preferred  prose  to  poetry; 
not  that  he  regarded  it  as  a  higher  and  more  ex- 
alting form  of  literary  product;  but  rather  that 
his  appeals  to  public  and  scholarly  favor  were 
most  successfully  made  through  the  province  of 
prose,  though  some  of  his  profoundest  convictions 
and  highest  ideals  sought  their  most  fitting  ex- 
pression in  verse.  Moreover,  as  life  advanced  and 
his  powers  matured,  prose  engaged  him  more  and 
more  fully,  the  mutual  influence  of  the  two,  how- 
ever, being  as  a  rule  for  the  good  of  each. 

The  classification  of  his  poems  given  in  his  re- 
cent edition  of  1895,  is  as  follows:  (1)  "Early 
Poems,"  including  sonnets  and  other  selections; 
(2)  "  Narrative  Poems/'  such  as  "  Sohrab  and 
Rustum  " ;  (3)  Sonnets  Proper,  such  as  "A  Pic- 
ture at  Newstead";  (4)  "Lyric  Poems,"  such  as 
"Meeting"  and  "Parting";  (5)  "Elegiac  Po- 
ems," such  as  "  The  Scholar-Gipsy  "  and  "  Thyr- 
sis";  (6)  "Dramatic  Poems,"  as  "  Merope  " ;  and 
(7)  "Later  Poems,"  as  "Westminster  Abbey" 
and  "  Kaiser  Dead."  This  sevenfold  division  of 
poems  in  manifest  violation  of  logical  and  literary 
unity  may  properly  be  reduced  to  the  three  orders 


218  Special  Discussions 

of  narrative,  dramatic,  and  lyric  verse,  as  these  in 
turn  illustrate  more  or  less  clearly  the  presence  of 
didactic  and  descriptive  elements.  Hence,  al- 
though the  three  great  divisions  of  verse  are  here 
illustrated,  Arnold  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  a 
versatile  and  voluminous  writer*  of  poetry.  His 
three  longest  narrative  or  epic  poems,  so  called, 
are  o>f  the  nature  of  semi-epics,  and  his  dramas  are 
confined  to  "  Merope  "  and  "Empedocles  on  Etna  "  ; 
the  latter  having  but  two  acts,  and  "  Merope  "  not 
conforming  to  the  accepted  fullness  of  a  play.  At 
this  point,  Arnold  and  Emerson  come  into  natural 
comparison,  as  to  the  relative  amount  of  prose  and 
verse  which  they  respectively  wrote,  the  poems  of 
each  being  contained  in  a  single  volume  as  com- 
"pared  with  several  volumes  of  prose.  In  a  won- 
derful degree  Arnold  resembles  Lowell  here,  and 
Coleridge  and  Southey  and  Scott  and  Landor ; 
some  literary  features  'common  to  Arnold  and 
Lowell  both  in  verse  and  prose  being  well  worth 
the  notice  of  the  student. 

A  mere  specific  examination  of  Arnold's  poetry- 
is  now  in  place,  and  discloses  the  following  char- 
acteristics : — • 

1.  Classic  taste  is  at  once  discernible  by  every 
impartial  reader  of  the  verse  before  us,  nor  would 


The  Poetry  of  Matthezv  Arnold  219 

any  tribute  that  the  reader  might  pay  to  it  have 
been  more  pleasing  to  the  author  himself.  As  in 
prose,  so  in  poetry,  this  was  a  feature  that  he 
would  under  no  consideration  sacrifice  for  any  ap- 
parent temporary  advantage,  however  strongly 
urged.  This  sense  of  form  in  itself  and  in  its  re- 
lation to  the  subjiect-matter  was  in  a  degree  the 
central  principle  of  his  literary  life  and  work  —  a 
conscientious  warfare  against  Philistinism,  an  ex- 
altation of  the  humanities  whenever  opportunity 
offered,  an  insistence  that  there  should  be  the  man- 
ifest presence  of  Hellenic  art  and  culture  in  every 
worthy  literary  product.  He  believed,  with  Keats, 
that  beauty  and  truth  were  inseparably  connected ; 
that  even  prose  literature  should  be  made  artis- 
tically attractive,  while  poetry  as  a  fine  art  could 
not  be  said  to  exist  without  the  pervading  pres- 
ence of  the  aesthetic.  Hence,  to  quote  from  Ar- 
nold's verse  in  confirmation  of  this  fact  or  to  refer 
the  reader  to  certain  poems  as  exemplifying'  it 
would  be  quite  invidious,  in  that  this  element  of 
verbal  refinement  is  inherent  in  all  the  verse.  In 
this  respect  -  poetry,  with  Arnold,  was  simply  the 
best  medium  known  to  him  through  which  he 
could  fitly  express  his  deepest  sense  of  beauty  and 
art.  It  is  in  this  light  that  the  meters  of  Ar- 


220  Special  Discussions 

nold's  poetry  should  be  studied,  exhibiting  as 
they  do  all  the  standard  varieties  of  feet  and 
line  from  the  couplet  on  to  blank  verse  and  re- 
lated forms;  the  selection  of  the  pentameter  mea- 
sure for  any  given  poem  depending  in  part  upon 
the  theme  and  content  of  the  poem  and  in  part 
upon  its  fitness  as  the  medium  of  an  attractive 
rhythmical  movement  and  effect.  It  is  thus  that 
in  such  narrative  poems  as  "  Sohrab  and  Rustum  " 
and  "  Balder  Dead  "  we  have  blank  verse,  while  in 
such  as  "'Tristram  and  Iseult "  blank  verse  gives 
place  to  the  rhyming  couplet  and  quatrain.  Before 
dismissing  this  feature  it  is  in  place  to  state  that 
in  verse,  as  in  prose,  literary  technique  at  times 
appears  to  be  so  pronounced  as  to  become  an  end 
in  itself,  and  thus  lose  its  peculiar  charm  and  de- 
feat its  own  ends ;  the  art  of  the  poet  appearing  on 
the  face  of  the  poem,  and  to  that  extent  impairing 
the  spontaneous  and  natural  influence  of  the 
thought.  It  is  here  that  Arnold  and  Keats  are 
seen  to  be  similar,  and  to  some  extent  Arnold  and 
Lowell ;  while  the  verse  of  Emerson,  as  a  rule, 
fails  less  frequently  in  this  respect  than  does  the 
classical  verse  of  Arnold. 

2.     A  second  excellent  feature  of  Arnold's  verse 
is  its    pronounced  mental  type.      Nor  is  what  is 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold  221 

called  "  intellectuality  "  the  only  way  of  expressing 
this  feature.  The  poetry  is  as  a  whole  sensible, 
marked  by  strong-  thought  and  the  presence  of 
good  judgment  in  its  utterance.  We  are  not  al- 
luding here  to  the  scholarship  of  Arnold  in  this  or 
that  particular  branch  of  liberal  study,  nor  to  the 
fact  that  a  certain  amount  of  learning  appears  in 
his  verse,  but  are  noting  that  it  is  an  order  of  verse 
from  a  man  who  thinks  before  he  writes  and  as 
he  writes,  whose  faculties  are  healthfully  at  work 
in  authorship  and  completely  under  control  as  he 
writes,  so  that  on  the  reader's  part  there  is  re- 
quired a  corresponding  mental  activity.  Here  we 
note  a  characteristic  complementary  of  the  one 
just  mentioned,  taste  under  the  control  of  mind-, 
what  Dowden  has  called  "  mind  and  art "  in  one 
expression.  Hence,  Arnold  could  not  have  in- 
dorsed those  views  of  verse  which  make  it  purely 
impassioned  or  imaginative,  as  Shelley's  poetry  is 
"  the  language  of  the  imagination,"  or  Milton's 
poetry  is  "  simple,  sensuous,  and  passionate."  He 
would  say,  with  Elliott,  "  Poetry  is  impassioned 
truth,"  or,  with  Mill,  "  It  is  the  influence  of  the 
feelings  over  our  thoughts,"  the  element  of  thought 
being  essential. 

Here,  again,  Arnold  overreached  himself  in  em- 


222  Special  Discussions 

phasizing  the  intellectual  element  of  verse,,  even 
though  believing  thereby  his  own  statement  in 
"  The  New  Sirens," 

"  Only,  what  we  feel,  we  know." 

He  sometimes  knew  more  than  he  felt  or  could 
make  his  reader  feel,  so  that  there  is  to  this  ex- 
tent the  absence  of  a  profound  and  sustained  poetic 
impulse.  Feeling  involves  intensity ;  Arnold  is  too 
infrequently  an  intense  poet,  illustrating  one  of  his 
lines  in  "  Resignation," 

"  Not  deep  the  poet  sees,  but  wide." 

To  this  extent  Arnold  is  an  Augustan  poet  of  the 
eighteenth  century  —  too  reserved  when  we  expect 
him  to  be  demonstrative,  holding  in  check  as  if  by 
force  of  will  those  more  natural  impulses  that 
arise  and  appeal  for  expression.  Hence  there  are 
times  when  we  must  study  Arnold's  verse  — 
though  we  should  prefer  simply  to  read  it  at  sight, 
as  an  exercise  of  pure  enjoyment  for  leisure  hours. 
3.  A  further  merit  is  seen  in  the  line  of  per- 
sonality,—  a  decided  merit  in  any  author,  and 
never  more  welcome  than  in  these  days  of  an  easy- 
going imitation  of  writers  and  schools.  Arnold's 
home  training  at  Rugby  was  all  in  the  direction 
of  a  manly  independence  of  view,  Thomas  Arnold 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold  223 

never  failed  to  teach  his  pupils  that  the  secret  of 
successful  life  was  the  mastery  of  self,  the  culti- 
vation and  expression  of  individualism  in  every 
worthy  sense.  More  than  this,  he  was  himself 
unique  in  thinking,  method,  and  purpose  —  start- 
ing and  discussing  his  own  questions  in  his  own 
way,  never  so  well  pleased  as  when  he  found  him- 
self thus  related  to  the  thinking  world  at  large. 
Whatever  merits  or  faults  the  verse  of  Arnold  may 
have,  they  are  absolutely  his  own,  nor  does  he  hes- 
itate a  moment  to  insist  that  they  are  his.  No  dis- 
criminating reader  would  ever  mistake  the  author- 
ship of  his  verse,  so  as  to  feel  that  when  he  is 
reading  Arnold  he  is  reading  Milton  or  Words- 
worth or  Tennyson.  "  Dover  Beach  "  and  "  Em- 
pedocles  on  Etna "  carry  on  their  face  and 
between  the  lines  the  manifest  marks  of  their 
genuineness. 

Egotism  as  a  merit  sometimes  degenerates,  how- 
ever, into  egotism  as  a  fault,  and  Arnold  is  no  ex- 
ception to  the  law  of  decadence.  Students  of  his 
prose  have  noticed  it,  while  his  verse  is  not  devoid 
of  it.  Individualism  is  pressed  to  the  verge  of  an 
unpleasant  projection  of  the  author  upon  the  page, 
so  as  to  oblige  the  reader  to  mark  the  intrusion. 
Arnold's  portrait  is  thus  too  essential  a  part  of  his 


224  Special  Discussions 

poetry,  and  must  be  seen  even  before  the  poetry  is 
read  as  an  essential  factor  in  its  interpretation. . 
The  frontispiece  is  thus  in  danger  of  becoming 
an  affrontispiece,  and  we  prefer  to  judge  the 
verse  on  its  merits.  There  is  a  real,  subjective  ele- 
ment in  verse,  though  it  need  not  be  too  strongly 
impressed  on  the  reader. 

4.  A  fourth  characteristic  of  merit  may  be 
styled  poetic  dignity  of  diction  and  manner,  a  fea- 
ture of  style  and  character  by  no  means  confined  to 
his  verse.  Seen  especially  in  his  longer  poems, 
such  as  "  Sohrab  and  Rustum,"  "  Balder  Dead," 
and  "  Tristram  and  Iseult,"  it  may  be  said  to  per- 
vade his  poetry  so  as  to  make  it  distinctive.  At 
times  it  appears  in  the  form  of  high  and  sedate 
Oriental  imagery ;  at  times  a  kind  of  semi-Homeric 
method;  and  at  times  in  the  use  of  bold  Scandi- 
navian legends.  It  is  thus  in  the  poem  of  "  The 
Neckan,"  beginning, 

"  In  summer,  on  the  headlands, 

The  Baltic  Sea  along, 
Sits  Neckan  with  his  harp  of  gold, 
And  Sings  his  plaintive  song." 

We  might  call  it  in  Arnold  a  kind  of  epical  eleva- 
tion of  tone  and  teaching,  combined  with  a  dra- 
matic sobriety  of  movement ;  as  in  "  Merope," 


f  he  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold 


"  Empedocles  on  Etna,"  and  "  The  Strayed  Revel- 
ler." Not  infrequently  it  appears  in  a  pensive, 
meditative  order  of  verse  ;  as,  in  "  Meeting," 
"  Parting-,"  "A  Farewell,"  "  Isolation,"  "  Quiet 
Work,"  "  Requiescat,"  "Youth  and  Calm,"  "A 
Memory-Picture,"  and  similar  selections.  What- 
ever the  form  of  verse  may  be,  there  is  a  stateli- 
ness  about  it  that  commands  respect,  while  also 
warning  the  reader  against  undue  familiarity  with 
the  author.  Here  we  touch  upon  the  other  and 
less  attractive  side  of  his  verse,  as  seen  in  the  pres- 
ence of  undue  reserve  of  person  and  manner, 
amounting  at  times  to  a  studied  hauteur,  or  superi- 
ority, widening  the  distance  between  the  poet  and 
the  reader  and  perverting  a  literary  decorum  into 
the  extreme  of  the  supercilious.  Longinus,  in  his 
celebrated  treatise  "  On  the  Sublime,"  or  eleva- 
tion in  poetry,  insisted  on  its  application,  not  only 
to  thought  and  expression,  but  to  feeling.  There 
is  in  'Arnold  the  absence  of  this  sympathetic  qual- 
ity, confirming  what  he  writes,  as  to  the  muse  of 
verse,  in  his  lines  on  the  "Austerity  of  Poetry." 
There  is  this  austere  and,  to  that  extent,  forbid- 
ding reserve,  where  the  reader  is  looking  for  free- 
dom, fellowship,  and  even  confidential  relations 
with  the  author. 


Special  Discussions 


Hence  the  limited  descriptive  range  of  Arnold 
as  a  poet,  especially  when  he  attempts  to  portray 
Nature  in  all  her  varied  forms.  With  but  few  ex- 
ceptions, these  sketches  are  labored  and  unimpres- 
sive, the  work  of  an  amateur  and  not  that  of  one 
thoroughly  at  home  amid  the  rich  variety  of  phys- 
ical phenomena  and  freely  admitted  into  their 
secret  and  truer  life.  An  ardent  admirer,  as 
Arnold  was,  of  Wordsworth  as  a  poet,  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  him  to  have  given  us,  as 
Wordsworth  did,  an  accurate  and  appreciative 
view  of  the  natural  world  of  beauty.  It  is  this 
mental  and  literary  austerity,  moreover,  that  ex- 
plains, as  nothing  else  does,  the  lyrical  and  dra- 
matic limitations  of  Arnold,  that  lack  of  whole- 
souled  spontaneous  movement  that  we  of  right 
expect  in  the  play  or  sonnet.  Here  and  there  we 
note  a  poem  of  some  dramatic  and  idyllic  force  and 
fervor;  such  as,  "A  Dream,"  "The  New  Age," 
"  The  Scholar-Gypsy,"  and  parts  of  "  Empedocles 
on  Etna."  But  these  are  notably  exceptional,  the 
prevailing  tone  being  academic  and  studied,  de- 
void of  stirring  impulse.  As  we  read,  we  desire 
more  flexibility  and  abandon,  the  occasional 
"  snatching  of  a  grace  beyond  the  reach  of  art,"  — 
in  a  word,  an  unreserved  revelation  of  inner 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold  227 

thought  and  life.  It  is  thus  that  his  verse  lacks 
impressiveness  and  can  never  be  widely  current  — 
an  order  of  poetry  for  the  cultured  and  leisure 
classes,  for  men  of  books  and  learning,  for  literary 
artists  and  critics,  but  not  for  the  average  man 
with  his  trials  and  cares  and  ambitions.  In  one 
of  his  poems,  "A  Caution  to  Poets,"  he  writes : — 

"  What  poets  feel  not,  when  they  make, 

A  pleasure  in  creating, 
The  world,  in  its  turn,  will  not  take 
Pleasure  in  contemplating." 

On  this  principle  Arnold  becomes  his  own  severest 
critic  as  to  the  need  of  feeling  in  verse  and  the 
fatal  results  of  its  absence.  Not  that  he  did  not 
feel  what  he  wrote,  but  that  he  had  not  the  gift 
of  embodying  his  soul  in  song  and  of  making  the 
lines  throb  with  genuine  passion. 

5.  We  note  a  further  feature  in  the  line  of 
religious  speculation.  Here  Arnold  was  at  home 
in  dealing  with  topics  that  served  to  elicit  the 
deepest  energies  of  his  being.  In  so  far  as  his 
prose  is  concerned  it  is  to  be  noted  that  none  of 
his  books  called  forth  wider  comment  than  those 
mainly  theological,  such  as  "  God  and  the  Bible," 
some  critics  still  holding  that  his  best  work  has 
been  done  in  this  sphere.  His  verse  throughout 


228  Special  Discussions 

exhibits  this  governing  characteristic.  An  exam- 
ination of  the  titles  of  his  poems  and  their  content 
will  fully  confirm  this  view.  This  is  the  signal 
feature  of  his  "  Early  Poems,"  in  "  Quiet  Work," 
"  Religious  Isolation,"  "  Youth's  Agitations,"  "  Hu- 
man Life,"  and  indeed  through  the  list  as  a  whole. 
So  in  later  poems ;  such  as,  "  Progress,"  "  Self- 
Dependence,"  "  The  Buried  Life,"  "  The  Future," 
and  such  memorial  verse  as  that  to  Clough, 
Thomas  Arnold,  Heine,  Wordsworth,  and  Stanley. 
In  his  poem  "A  Wish,"  this  specifically  semi- 
religious  cast  prominently  appears: — 

"  I  ask  not  each  kind  soul  to  keep 

Tearless,  when  of  my  death  he  hears. 
Let  those  who  will,  if  any,  weep! 

There  are  worse  plagues  on  earth  than  tears. 

"  I  ask  but  that  my  death  may  find 
The  freedom  to  my  life  denied; 
Ask  but  the  folly  of  mankind 

Then,  then  at  last,  to  quit  my  side. 

"  Nor  bring,  to  see  me  cease  to  live, 

Some  doctor  full  of  phrase  and  fame, 
To  shake  his  sapient  head,  and  give 
The  ill  he  cannot  cure  a  name. 

"Nor  fetch,  to  take  the  accustom'd  toll 
Of  the  poor  sinner  bound  for  death, 
His  brother-doctor  of  the  soul, 
To  canvass  with  official  breath 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold  22(J 

"The  future  and  its  viewless  things — 

That  undiscover'd  mystery 
Which  one  who  feels  death's  winnowing  wings 
Must  needs  read  clearer,  sure,  than  he! 

"Bring  none  of  these;  but  let  me  be, 

While  all  around  in  silence  lies, 
Moved  to  the  window  near,  and  see 
Once  more,  before  my  dying  eyes, 

"  Bathed  in  the  sacred  dews  of  mocn 

The  wide  aerial  landscape  spread — 
The  world  which  was  ere  I  was  born, 
The  world  which  lasts  when  I  am  dead ; 

"  Thus  feeling,   gazing  might   I   grow 

Composed,  refresh'd,  ennobled,  clear; 
Then  willing  let  my  spirit  go 

To  work  or  wait  elsewhere  or  here !  " 

How  signally  part  of  this  wish  was  fulfilled  in  the 
poet's  sudden  death  in  Liverpool,  without  the  pos- 
sible intervention  of  physician  or  priest,  is  known 
to  all. 

Never  has  there  been  a  more  distinctive  moral- 
izer  in  English  verse  than  was  Arnold,  distasteful 
as  all  moralizing  was  to  his  sensitive  nature.  He 
treated  no  theme  or  question  out  of  its  ethical  re- 
lations, even  though  he  did  it  unconsciously.  If 
his  purely  literary  type  was  Hellenic,  his  personal 
type  was  semi-Hebraic.  He  was  never  more  truly 
himself  than  when  profoundly  speculating  on  the 


230  Special  Discussions 

high  themes  of  God  and  the  soul  and  immortality, 
nor  could  he  have  wished  it  otherwise.  If  we  turn 
now  to  the  practical  use  that  he  made  of  this  spec- 
ulative tendency,  we  shall  find  it  to  have  been  in 
the  main  on  the  side  of  doubt  and  despondency, 
here  also  being  true  to  his  general  character  as  a 
man  and  his  work  as  a  writer  of  prose.  Just  as 
the  major  part  of  his  verse  deals  in  ethical  and  re- 
ligious speculation,  so  the  larger  part  of  his  ethical 
verse  is  on  this  minor  and  often  melancholy  key. 
In  his  poem  on  "  Youth's  Agitations  "  he  closes 
with  the  suggestive  couplet, 

"  And  sigh  that  one  thing  only  has  been  lent 
To  youth  and  age  in  common  —  discontent." 

So  in  "  Stagirius  "  he  sings  a  prayer, 

"From   doubt,   where  all   is  double; 
Where  wise  men  are  not  strong, 
Where  comfort  turns  to  trouble, 
Where  just  men  suffer  wrong; 
Where  sorrow  treads  on  joy, 
Where  sweet  things  soonest  cloy, 
Where  faiths  are  built  on  dust, 
Where  love  is  half  mistrust, 
Hungry,  and  barren,  and  sharp  as  the  sea — 
Oh!  set  us  free." 

So  in  his  poem  "A  Question  "  he  says : — 

"  Joy  comes  and  goes,  hope  ebbs  and  flows 
Like  the  wave; 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold  231 

Change  doth  unknit  the  tranquil  strength  of  men, 
Love  lends  life  a  little  grace, 
A  few  sad  smiles;  and  then, 
Both  are  laid  in  one  cold  place, 
In  the  grave." 

So  in  "  Faded  Leaves"  he  writes: — 

"  Before  I  die  —  before  the  soul, 
Which  now  is  mine,  must  re-attain 
Immunity  from  my  control, 
And  wander  round  the  world  again." 

In  similar  strain  are  his  poems  "  Despondency," 
"  Self-Deception,"  and  "  Dover  Beach."  In  this 
last  poem  he  seems  to  chant  the  requiem  of  his 
own  earlier  faith,  as  he  sing's : — 

"The  Sea  of  Faith 

Was  once,  too,  at  the  full,  and  round  earth's  shore 
Lay  like  the  folds  of  a  bright  girdle  furl'd. 
But  now  I  only  hear 
Its  melancholy,  long,  withdrawing  roar, 
Retreating,  to  the  breath 

Of  the  night-wind,  down  the  vast  edges  drear 
And  naked  shingles  of  the  world. 
. . .  for  the  world,  which  seems 
To  lie  before  us  like  a  land  of  dreams, 
So  various,  so  beautiful,  so  new, 
Hath  really  neither  joy,  nor  love,  nor  light, 
Nor  certitude,  nor  peace,  nor  help  for  pain; 
And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain 
Swept  with  confused  alarms  of  struggle  and  flight, 
Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night." 

So  in  his  poem  "  Geist's  Grave,"  he   sings  in'  al- 


232  Special  Discussions 

most  a  despairing  key  of  human  life  and  hope  and 
destiny : — 

"  Stern  law  of  every  mortal  lot ! 

Which  man,  proud  man,  finds  hard  to  bear, 
And  builds  himself  I  know  not  what 
Of  second  life,  I  know  not  where." 

Thus  the  prevailing  tone  is  that  of  dejection  and 
often  of  dismay,  summoning  the  attention  of  the 
reader  to  no  wider  outlook  than  that  which  earth 
affords,  and  awakening  in  him  more  and  more 
doubt  the  nearer  he  approaches  the  sphere  of 
supernatural  truth  and  reality.  In  one  of  his 
earlier  poems,  "  To  a  Friend,"  he  writes  of  one 

"Who  saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole." 

Arnold  did  neither,  his  view  of  human  life  being 
disturbed  and  partial,  and  hence  the  occasion  of 
unrest  to  himself  and  others.  One  of  the  grounds 
of  his  attachment  to  Clough,  as  he  expresses  it  in 
"  Thyrsis,"  is  found  in  this  dispiriting  view  of  life 
common  to  them  as  men  and  poets. 

One  of  the  grounds  also  of  Arnold's  limitations 
as  a  poet  is  found  in  the  fact  that  he  never  had 
any  cheerful,  hopeful,  message  for  men  in  their 
struggles  and  disappointments,  but  left  all  ques- 
tions of  life  and  duty  as  unsettled  as  he  found 
them,  if,  indeed,  not  more  perplexing  than  ever. 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold  233 

A  few  of  his  poems  —  such  as  "  Thyrsis,"  "  Rugby 
Chapel,"  "  Heine's  Grave,"  and  "  Haworth  Church- 
yard ",  -  are  properly  called  "  Elegiac."  There  is 
a  sense  in  which  two-thirds  of  his  verse  is  elegiac 
—  a  somber  contemplation  of  vanished  ambitions,  a 
tribute  given  perforce  to  a  something  lost  out  of 
his  life,  he  scarcely  knew  what.  It  is  at  this  point, 
as  much  as  at  any  other,  that  the  superior  moral 
personality  of  his  father  appears,  a  superiority 
which  the  son  himself  was  not  slow  to  discern,  as 
he  wrote  in  "  Rugby  Chapel  "  :— 

"  to  us  thou  wast  still 
Cheerful,  and  helpful,  and  firm ! 
Therefore  to  thee  it  was  given 
Many  to  save  with  thyself; 
And,  at  the  end  of  thy  day, 
O  faithful  shepherd,  to  come, 
Bringing  thy  sheep  in  thy  hand. 
And  through  thee  I  believe 
In  the  noble  and  great  who  are  gone." 

Such,  as  we  estimate  them,  are  the  salient  fea- 
tures in  the  poetic  work  of  Arnold,  nor  are  we  far 
astray  when  we  summarize  his  merits  and  demer- 
its in  the  statement  that  he  had  high  ideals  as  a 
poet  which  he  had  not  the  gifts  fully  to  realize. 
He  had  the  "  vision  divine,"  though  not  the  "  fac- 
ulty divine  " ;  while  no  careful  reader  of  his  verse 
can  fail  to  note  the  evidence  on  almost  every  page 


234  Special  Discussions 

of  this  despairing  struggle  to  make  poetic  concep- 
tion and  poetic  execution  accordant.  Visible  as 
this  feature  is  in  his  shorter  poems,  it  is  especially 
apparent  in  his  three  longer  narrative  poems  and 
in  his  two  specific  attempts  at  dramatic  writing, 
in  no  one  of  which  poems  has  he  approximated  to 
Miltonic  or  Shakespearean  effects. 

Conceding  as  he  does  in  one  of  his  poems, 

"The  seeds  of  godlike  power  are  in  us  still; 
Gods  are  we,  bards,  saints,  heroes,  if  we  will," 

the  implanted  seeds  never  developed  to  full  ma- 
turity, nor  did  the  will  to  become  a  master-bard 
prove  sufficient  to  effect  so  great  a  result.  In  his 
poem  "  Self-Deception,"  he  would  almost  seem  to 
have  conceded  this  limitation,  as  he  writes: — 

"  Ah,  whose  hand  that  day  through  Heaven  guided 
Man's   new   spirit,    since    it   was   not   we? 
Ah,  who  sway'd  our  choice,  and  who  decided 
What  our  gifts,  and  what  our  wants  should  be? 

"  For,  alas !  he  left  us  each  retaining 
Shreds  of  gifts  which  he  refused  in  full. 
Still  these  waste  us  with  their  hopeless  straining, 
Still  the  attempt  to  use  them  proves  them  null. 

"  And  on  earth  we  wander,  groping,  reeling ; 
Powers  stir  in  us,  stir  and  disappear. 
Ah !  and  he,  who  placed  our  master-feeling, 
Fail'd  to  place  that  master-feeling  clear. 


The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold  235 

"  We  but  dream  we  have  our  wisu'd-for  powers, 
Ends  w>e  seek  we  never  shall  attain. 
Ah!  some  power  exists  there,  which  is  ours? 
Some  end  is  there,  we  indeed  may  gain?" 

Here  is  an  acknowledgment  of  gift  and  inability 
in  one  and  an  almost  pitiful  lament  over  the  chasm 
discovered  by  the  poet  himself  between  ambition 
and  ability.  A  poet  of  classic  culture  and  intel- 
lectual merit;  a  poet  of  unique  personality  and 
high  poetic  dignity,  of  marked  ethical  purpose  and 
lofty  ideal  —  he  still  with  all  his  merits  falls  far 
short  of  masterliness  in  verse.  Adopting  his  own 
favorite  phrase,  he  is  an  "  interesting,"  though  not 
a  great,  poet.  He  is  interesting  only  because  not 
inspiring,  and  he  is  not  inspiring  because  not 
inspired. 

With  some  superb  lines  and  passages  at  distant 
intervals  in  his  verse  there  is  no  extended  and  even 
flow  O'f  high  poetic  form  in  which  mind  and  soul 
and  art  are  fused  in  the  unity  of  great  effect,  and 
the  reader  is  carried  aloft  to  the  vision  of  truth 
and  goodness  and  beauty  and  love.  It  is  the  con- 
stant presence  of  this  vain  endeavor  to  be  as  a 
poet  what  he  longed  to  be  that  is  the  explanation 
of  that  dominant  feature  of  sadness  that  is  so 
clearly  seen  in  the  thoughtful  face  of  Matthew 
A  mold. 


VI 

THE  POETRY  OF  ROBERT  BROWNING 

OUR  poet  was  born  in  the  vicinity  of  London, 
in  1812,  in  Camberwell.  After  his  early  school- 
days and  his  later  educational  life  at  London  Uni- 
versity, he  went  to  Italy,  in  1832,  spending  in  all 
not  less  than  fifteen  years  in  that  land  of  song  and 
art.  It  is  probable  that  but  few,  if  any,  English- 
men have  made  themselves  more  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted with  the  language,  life,  and  history  of 
medieval  and  modern  Italy.  It  is,  therefore,  mat- 
ter-of-fact prose  as  well  as  poetry  when  in  "  '  De 
Gustibus  — '  ",  he  writes : — 

"Open  my  heart,   and  you  will   see 
Graved  inside  of  it,  '  Italy.'  " 

B>ella  Italia  was  ever  on  his  lips,  as  on  those  of 
Mrs.  Browning,  and  it  was  their  mutual  delight 
to  sing  her  praises  and  defend  her  interests.  It 
would  be  a  pleasing  task  to  trace  the  history  of 
English  poetry  from  Edward  III.  to  Victoria  with 
the  purpose  of  showing  its  indebtedness  to  Italy; 
to  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  Boiardo,  Ariosto,  Tasso, 
236 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning  237 

Bruno,  and  the  gifted  Alfieri.  Under  this  specific 
poetic  influence,  Browning  voluntarily  placed  him- 
self, and  cannot  be  appreciated  as  a  man  or  a  poet 
apart  from  its  presence  as  a  primal  factor.  Not 
only  did  his  special  studies  in  the  monasteries  of 
Venice  and  Lombardy  make  him,  in  a  real  sense, 
Anglo-Italian,  but,  also,  his  protracted  life  among 
the  people  made  him  such. 

On  the  basis  of  natural  tendencies,  and  from  the 
fact  that  his  father  was  a  man  of  poetic  taste  and 
achievement,  our  author  is  said  to  have  written 
verse  as  early  as  at  ten  years  of  age,  thus  placing 
himself  in  line  with  Pope  and  other  English  bards 
of  premature  development.  His  first  production, 
entitled  "  Pauline :  A  Fragment  of  a  Confession," 
was  published  in  1833,  just  as  he  reached  his  ma- 
jority, and  was  fittingly  called  by  the  poet  him- 
self, "  a  boyish  work."  In  1835,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-three,  he  wrote  "  Paracelsus,"  between 
whose  central  idea  as  a  poem  and  that  of  Goethe's 
"  Faust "  many  English  critics  have  noted  points 
of  marked  resemblance.  As  most  first  efforts  of 
such  minds,  these  poems  were  purely  tentative  and 
indicative:  in  no  high  sense  establishing  his  claim 
to  poetic  merit,  and  yet  doing  something  in  the 
line  of  opening  up  the  way  to  worthier  things.  In 


238  Special  Discussions 

1836-37  the  dramatic  poem  "  Stratford  "  appeared, 
dedicated  to  Macready,  the  great  actor  of  the  day ; 
designed  for  scenic  representation,  and,  in  fact, 
presented  on  the  stage  by  Macready  himself.  Too 
irregular  and  indefinite  to  meet  with  public  favor, 
it  ran  a  course  of  four  or  five  nights  and  was 
withdrawn.  In  1840  "  Sordello  "  appeared,  justly 
pronounced  by  modern  critics  to  be  "  a  chaotic 
mass  of  word-building,"  the  errors  of  which  the 
poet  himself,  in  later  years,  acknowledged,  and  yet 
insisted  that  with  care  all  difficulties  would  vanish 
and  its  purpose  be  clearly  seen.  Between  "  Sor- 
dello "  and  his  marriage  to  Miss  Barrett,  in  1846,  a 
higher  and  more  varied  form  of  literary  work  was 
accomplished,  especially  as  seen  in  the  two  collec- 
tions, "  Bells  and  Pomegranates,"  and  "  Dramatic 
Romances  and  Lyrics."  Such  examples  as 
"  Luria,"  "  The  Return  of  the.  Druses,"  "  Colombe's 
Birthday,"  "A  Soul's  Tragedy,"  "  King  Victor  and 
King  Charles,"  "  Pippa  Passes,"  "A  Blot  in  the 
'Scutcheon,"  "The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,"  and 
"  How  They  Brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent 
to  Aix  "  will  sufficiently  indicate  the  character  of 
these  respective  collections.  From  the  completion 
of  this  cycle  of  poems,  in  1846,  on  through  nearly 
two  decades,  -to  1864,  his  pen  was  especially  busy, 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          239 

and  with  more  than  usual  success.  The  two  char- 
acteristic collections  of  these  eighteen  years  are 
seen  in  "  Men  and  Women,"  in  1855,  containing 
half  a  hundred  poems,  and  in  "  Dramatis  Per- 
sonae,"  1864,  marking  the  very  close  of  the  poetical 
period.  Such  well-known  examples  as  "Andrea 
del  Sarto,"  "  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,"  "  Pictor  Ignotus," 
"  Cristina,"  "  Christmas-Eve  and  Easter-Day," 
"  The  Laboratory,"  and  "  The  Confessional  "  will 
illustrate  the  general  topic  and  character  of  this 
verse,  produced,  as  it  was,  in  the  author's  physical 
and  mental  prime.  Hence,  the  comments  of  Sted- 
man  and  others  upon-  its  high  grade  of  merit  are 
justified.  From  1864  on,  Browning  was  busier 
than  ever,  and  down  to  the  date  of  his  death,  De- 
cember 12,  1889,  was  a  man  enthusiastically  de- 
voted to  his  work.  Of  these  later  productions, 
"  The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  in  1869,  is  the  longest 
and  most  unique.  No  one  but  Browning  could  or 
would  have  written  it.  It  is  a  matter  of  congrat- 
ulation to  English  readers  that  he  wrote  it,  and 
wrote  but  one  of  its  kind  —  its  object,  according 
to  Professor  Corson,  being  to  show  that  "  art  is 
an  intermediate  agent  of  personality."  In  1871 
"  Balaustion's  Adventure "  appeared ;  in  1872, 
"  Fifine  at  the  Fair  " ;  in  1873,  "  Red  Cotton  Night- 


240  Special  Discussions 

cap  Country  " ;  in  1875,  "Aristophanes'  Apology  " 
and  "  The  Inn  Album  "  ;  in  1877,  "Agamemnon  "  ; 
in  1884,  "  Feristah's  Fancies  " ;  in  188.7,  "  Parley- 
ings  with  Certain  People  of  Importance  in  Their 
Day  " ;  and  "Asolando :  Facts  and  Fancies  "  ap- 
peared in  the  very  year  of  his  death,  1889.  There 
is  fertility  here,  if  nothing  else,  scarcely  surpassed 
by  any  English  poet;  and  while  there  is  a  tacit 
conviction,  in  many  minds,  that  bulk  and  brains 
are  in  the  inverse  ratio,  it  is  due  to  all  such  volum- 
inous authors  to  defer  such  decision  till  candid 
examination  is  made.  Dickens,  Scott,  Bulwer,  and 
Reade  maintain  their  rank  as  standard  novelists  in 
the  face  of  such  a  prejudice.  A  priori,  as  we  take 
up  Browning's  poetry,  we  may  logically  give  him 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  presuming  that  literary 
affluence  argues  literary  ability,  as  it  certainly 
argues  the  presence  of  unwonted  literary  zeal  and 
scope.  We  are  now  prepared  to  examine  more 
minutely  the  poetry  before  us,  and  note, 

BROWNING'S  POETIC  PERSONALITY 

He  has  never  been  anything  else  than  a  poet. 
For  better  or  for  worse,  he  has  never  had  but  one 
supreme  aim.  In  this,  he  is  one  of  a  few  names  in 
English  letters  —  so  much  himself  that  he  is  never 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          241 

confounded  with  any  other.  The  one  who  most 
strongly  influenced  him  was  his  wife,  and  yet,  in 
the  radical  elements  of  character  and  in  final  lit- 
erary aims,  no  two  British  authors  have  been  more 
unlike.  Each  sacredly  maintained  a  distinctive 
personality  in  poetry,  and  each  was  thereby  the 
stronger.  One  of  the  main  reasons  why  this  Eng- 
lish poet  has  found  such  a  welcome  in  certain 
circles,  and  is  named  as  one  of  the  first  authors  of 
Victorian  verse,  is  found  in  this  individuality  of 
soul  and  art.  He  has,  as  a  poet,  his  own  theory, 
and  from  the  outset  has  pressed  it  right  athwart 
many  of  the  accepted  canons  of  the  schools.  So 
prominent,  indeed,  is  this  feature  of  individualism 
that  we  find  therein  one  of  the  explanations  of  his 
partial  failure  in  the  higher  drama.  The  personal 
element  absorbed  the  impersonal;  the  life  of  one 
man  that  of  all  men ;  so  that  just  where  Shake- 
speare, the  great  cosmopolitan  dramatist,  suc- 
ceeded, Browning  failed.  Even  where,  according 
to  Professor  Corson,,  this  idea  of  personality  takes 
objective  form,  as  in  "  Saul,"  "  Luria,"  and  other 
poems,  the  individual  character  is  portrayed  rather 
than  the  generic  class  of  characters  of  which  it  is 
an  exponent.  Specification  takes  the  place  of  gen- 
eralization;  the  local,  that  of  the  universal.  He 


242  Special  Discussions 

has  thus  scorned,  and  purposely  so,  all  authority, 
precedent,  and  suggestion.  Though  his  contem- 
poraries, Tennyson,  Swinburne,  Morris,  Math- 
thew  Arnold,  Rossetti,  and  others,  have  come 
under  the  same  social  and  literary  influences,  he 
is  always  himself,  and  takes  pride  in  his  poetic 
egoism.  Hence/  as  is  true  of  all  such  independent 
minds,  he  may  be  said  to  have  not  only  readers 
and  admirers,  but  followers.  Not  a  few  of  the 
younger  poets  of  the  Victorian  Era  keep  him  in 
view  as  they  write,  and  attempt  what  is  quite  im- 
possible —  a  reproduction  of  his  mind  and  method. 
So  cautious  a  critic  as  Mr.  Stedman  concedes  to 
him  the  honor  of  having  founded  a  kind  of  school 
— "  the  new  life-school  "  of  modern  England  as 
distinct  from  the  "  still-life "  order  of  earlier 
days.  We  are  thus  justified  in  speaking  of  Brown- 
ing and  his  school,  as  of  Tennyson  and  his  school. 
Personality  is  power.  As  far  as  it  goes,  it  al- 
ways evinces  some  sterling  qualities  of  soul  and 
purpose,  and,  if  avoiding  the  unhealthful  extreme 
of  eccentricity;  enters  as  a  vital  factor  into  the  sum- 
total  of  every  commanding  character.  It  is  thus 
that  Mr.  Cooke,  in  his  carefully  worded  contrasts 
among  Carlyle,  Emerson,  and  Browning,  always 
emphasizes  this  personal  element,  as  he  writes: 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          243 

"  Carlyle  deals  with  history ;  Emerson,  with  moral 
law;  and  Browning,  with  the  individual  man  as 
a  soul,  distinct  and  unique."  He  quotes,  as  in 
point,  the  language  of  Shelley,  that  "  in  our  ap- 
proach to  the  poetry,  we  necessarily  approach  the 
personality  of  the  poet."  In  poetry  as  in  prose, 
"  the  style  is  the  man  himself."  The  law  reveals 
the  lawgiver ;  the  art,  an  artist ;  while  this  is  a 
principle  especially  true  in  all  superior  natures. 
Such  masters  soon  make  their  own  world  or  en- 
vironment. They  look  at  men  and  things,  at  truth 
and  beauty,  through  their  own  media,  so  that  if 
they  fail  in  their  inferences  and  represent  them- 
selves more  than  the  truth,  they  are  not  ignorant 
of  the  occasion  of  the  alleged  error,  and,  in  a  kind 
of  obstinate  independence,  are  ready  to  defend  it. 

HIS    INTELLECTUALITY    AS    A   POET 

If  we  were  obliged  to  reduce  all  of  Browning's 
characteristics  as  a  poet  to  one,  it  would  be  this. 
Various  terms  have  been  used  to  express  it.  It  is 
to  this  that  Domett  has  reference  when  he  speaks 
of  him  as  "  the  sublimest  asserter  of  the  soul  in 
song."  It  is  in  the  light  of  this  quality  that  nearly 
all  modern  commentators  have  placed  him  in  the 
realistic  school,  as  distinct  from  trie  romantic  and 


244  Special  Discussions 

classical  schools.  He  is,  thus,  called  "  the  poet 
of  psychology."  Were  there  now,  as  in  the  days 
of  Bishop  Donne,  a  metaphysical  school  of  Eng- 
lish poets,  his  name  would  be  prominent  therein. 
AJ r.  Stedman  calls  him  "  the  most  intellectual  of 
poets,"  while  he  may  be  said  to  sustain,  in  this  re- 
spect, the  same  relation  to  his  poetic  contempo- 
raries that  George  Eliot  did  to  her  fellow-authors 
in  the  province  of  the  English  novel.  It  is  this 
feature  in  Browning's  work  that  opens  anew  the 
question,  "  ill  to  solve,"  of  the  true  relation  of 
poetry  to  mental  power  —  a  question  partly  lit- 
erary, and  partly  philosophic,  and  one  as  to  which 
the  ablest  critics  persist  in  differing.  While  con- 
ceding that  there  must  be,  in  all  true  verse,  the 
mental  element  as  supreme,  we  hold  it  to  be  de- 
monstrable that,  in  poetry  as  distinct  from  prose,  the 
impassioned  and  imaginative  elements  should  be 
prominent  to  an  unusual  degree.  We  can  scarcely 
say,  with  Carlyle,  "  Poetry  is  nothing  but  higher 
knowledge."  Its  chief  end  is  pleasure.  Its  very 
form  as  metrical  is  unsuited  to  the  more  didactic 
process  of  the  reason,  while  the  liberty  of  range 
open  to  the  poet  is  based  more  on  fancy  and  feel- 
ing than  upon  any  specifically  mental  law.  When 
Wordsworth  speaks  of  "  the  vision  and  faculty  di- 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          245 

vine  "  as  essential  to  the  poet,  the  faculty  to  which 
he  refers  is  the  imagination,  and  not  the  higher 
reason.  Hence  the  question  whether  didactic  verse 
is  indeed  verse,  inasmuch  as  instruction  is  the 
final-  end  of  it.  Hence  the  substantial  failure  of 
such  poets  as  GifTord,  Rogers,  Pollok,  Tupper,  and 
Akenside,  in  that  the  reflective  controls  the  aesthetic 
and  emotional.  Even  in  the  sphere  of  epic  and  dra- 
matic verse,  where  genius  prevails  and  pronounced 
creative  ability  is  expected,  the  passionate  element 
must  be  conspicuous,  as  also  the  imaginative.  Too 
much  thought  cannot  be  embodied  in  verse,  if  it  be 
secured  that  it  always  be  mediated  to  the  reader 
through  taste,  sensibility,  and  imagination.  Brown- 
ing is  not  only  intellectual  as  a  poet,  he  is  scarcely 
anything  else.  He  is  what  Wordsworth  has  ironi- 
cally called  "an  intellectual  all-in-all."  "  The 
poet's  function,"  he  says,  "  is  that  of  beholding, 
with  an  understanding  keenness,  the  universe,  na- 
ture, and  man."  The  subordination  of  form  to 
idea  is  carried  to  the  farthest  extreme,  so  as  to 
overreach  its  own  best  ends,  and  thus  secures  nei- 
ther clearness  of  idea  nor  grace  of  form.  Mrs. 
Browning  marks,  at  this  point,  a  higher  type  of 
conception  and  execution.  No  one  would  deny  to 
her  the  possession  of  intellectuality,  and  yet  so 


246  Special  Discussions 

adjusted  to  other  gifts  as  to  work  in  harmony 
with  them  and  make  the  ultimate  product  sym- 
metrical and  effective.  The  mental  never  so  over- 
shadowed the  emotional  as  to  concentrate  atten- 
tion upon  it.  When  we  are  told,  for  example,  of 
'  The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  that  it  is  "  the  product 
of  sheer  intellect,"  we  see  the  salient  feature  of 
most  of  Browning's  verse,  and  add  that  whatever 
else  the  statement  means  or  does  not  mean,  it  is 
not  the  definition  of  a  poem.  Browning's  failure, 
as  a  poet,  lies  at  this  point.  We  must  not  be  mis- 
understood when  we  say  of  him,  as  Brutus  says 
of  Cassius,  "  He  thinks  too  much."  There  is  too 
much  of  the  abstract,  philosophic  method  of  the 
schools.  Ratiocination,  even  in  prose,  has  its 
limits,  and  may  defeat  its  own  ends.  In  verse  it 
should  be  so  concealed  as  to  be  known  only  by  its 
fruits.  When  it  is  said  that  Browning  "  speaks 
the  word  of  poetry  for  a  scientific  age  " ;  that  "  his 
supreme  purpose  is  synthetic  " ;  that  "  he  has  the 
analytic  spirit,"  we  are  using  phrases  whose  pri- 
mary meaning  is  applicable  outside  the  sphere  of 
verse,  within  the  more  dispassionate  area  of  prose. 
Nor  is  this  all.  Intellectuality,  in  the  best  sense, 
means  clear  thinking;  the  faculty  of  mental  in- 
sight and  sustained  mental  power,  the  result  of 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          247 

which  is  the  elucidation  of  truth.  With  Brown- 
ing, it  is  something  different  from  this.  Thinking 
takes  the  form  of  the  speculative  and  abtruse. 
Instead  of  philosophy,  pure  and  simple,  we  too 
often  find  psychology,  subtle  and  acute.  Abstract 
and  involved  introspection  often  takes  the  place  of 
lucid  reasoning  until  we  forget  that  we  are  deal- 
ing with  poetry  at  all.  In  a  word,  Browning's  in- 
tellectuality in  verse  is  not  of  the  most  satisfac- 
tory order;  so  that,  conceding  that  thought  is  the 
first  element  in  verse,  we  do  not  thereby  concede 
to  the  poetry  before  us  the  highest  merit.  Thought 
is  one  thing;  abstraction  is  another.  Creative 
genius  is  one  thing,  as  in  Milton ;  "  sheer  intel- 
lect "  is  another.  Thinking  is  one  thing ;  thinking 
clearly,  logically,  and  toward  a  definite  end  and 
an  ever-visible  end,  is  another.  It  is  not  alto- 
gether unfortunate,  however,  that  in  the  prevail- 
ing tendency  of  the  verbal  and  superficial,  the 
school  of  Browning  should  have  arisen  to  check 
its  progress  by  emphasizing  the  mental  side  of 
verse.  It  is  still  unfortunate  that  if  the  mental  is 
to  be  made  conspicuous,  it  should  be  magnified  to 
a  fault,  and  thus  be  made  to  mystify  and  discour- 
age rather  than  attract  and  inspire.  It  is  here 
justly  questionable  whether  an  average  order  of 


248  Special  Discussions 

mental  endowment  in  the  poet,  normally  and  faith- 
fully applied,  is  not  better  than  the  extreme  and 
abnormal  presence  of  rationality  in  song. 

HIS    DRAMATIC    QUALITY 

This  special  feature  of  our  author's  poetry  is  so 
prominent  as  to  justify  an  accurate  study.  In 
fullest  keeping  with  that  intellectuality  of  which 
we  have  spoken,  critics  have  referred  to  the  pres- 
ence in  his  verse  of  "  the  psychologic  monologue." 
We  note  his  dramatic  tendency  and  spirit  in  "  Par- 
acelsus "  and  subsequent  work.  Mr.  Cooke  pro- 
nounces a  high  eulogium  when  he  calls  him  "  an 
original  interpreter  of  life,"  and  is  never  weary 
of  confirming  his  tribute  by  a  reference  to  Shake- 
speare and  the  Elizabethan  dramatists.  Mr.  Sted- 
man,  with  a  true  literary  insight,  writes :  "  In  the 
original  sense  of  the  term,  Robert  Browning  is 
not  a  dramatist  at  all."  By  the  "  original  sense 
of  the  term  "  Mr.  Stedman  refers  to  the  essentially 
objective  nature  of  dramatic  art  as  distinct  from 
the  personal  and  subjective.  It  is  a  representa- 
tion of  character  as  revealed  in  the  race,  and  not 
as  found  in  the  poet  or  in  his  preferred  concep- 
tion of  what  it  is  or  ought  to  be.  Masters  of  his- 
trionic art  must  be  capable  of  dispossessing  them- 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          249 

selves  of  themselves.  Browning's  mental  activity 
was  too  introspective  to  admit'  of  such  mastery. 
Hence,  it  is  eminently  natural  that  when  we  come 
to  the  study  of  the  six  or  eight  specific  dramatic 
poems  of  our  author  we  find  them  to  be  "  mono- 
dramatic  "  rather  than  dramatic ;  monologues 
rather  than  dialogues ;  soliloquies  in  verse  rather 
than  the  objective  expression  of  a  mind  keenly 
alive  to  human  interests  and  needs.  Browning  has 
more  than  once  ventured  upon  the  analysis  of  his 
own  mind  a/n>d  art.  In  this  connection,  he  calls 
himself  "  a  writer  of  plays,"  evincing  meanwhile 
some  ignorance  as  to  just  what  is  meant  by  the 
phrase,  as  he  says  of  one  of  his  collections,  "  Such 
poems  come  properly  enough,  I  suppose,  under  the 
head  of  Dramatic  Pieces,  though,  for  the  most 
part,  lyric  in  expression,  being  always  dramatic 
in  principle."  This  is  to  say,  what  we  find  to  be 
the  truth,  that  in  "  Strafford,"  "  Sordello,"  and 
other  poems,  the  author  was  not  quite  sure  where 
he  was  working.  He  simply  knew  that  the  poems 
were  "  dramatic  in  principle,"  and  as  such  should 
be  classified  with  "  Othello  "  and  "Athalie." 

When  we  descend  to  the  last  analysis,  we  find 
that  Browning's  creative  genius  was  not  profound 
or  spacious  enough  to  meet  the  demands  of  a  great 


250  Special  Discussions 

dramatic  work;  that  his  impassioned  nature  was 
not  sufficiently  potent  or  expressive  for  it ;  that  his 
analysis  of  character  and  motive  was  not  acute 
enough  for  it,  nor  his  imagination  constructive 
enough  for  it;  in  fine,  that  the  order  of  his  dra- 
matic gift  was  not  Shakespearean  enough  to  be 
imposing  and  to  command  success.  More  realis- 
tic than  imaginative,  the  era  in  which  he  moves  is 
too  limited  for  the  largest  endeavor  and  effort. 
Critics  have  spoken  of  his  dramas  as  "  sub- 
dramas"  or  "  closet-dramas,"  as  if  produced  in 
the  old  cloisters  of  Italy.  A  close  study  of 
"Luria,"  "The  Return  of  the  Druses/'  and  "A 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon "  will  reveal  this  lack  of 
incident,  progress,  and  motive  which  make  all 
able  representation.  The  characters  are  not  suf- 
ficiently characteristic.  Local  scenes  rather  than 
general  are  presented,  so  that  as  we  read  we  feel 
that  we  are  shut  in  by  the  very  terms  of  the  poem 
to  a  definitely  prescribed  era  of  experience  and  ob- 
servation. It  is  especially  here  that  Browning 
stands  at  a  wide  remove  from  the  leading  dra- 
matists of  literature  —  from  Goethe,  Shakespeare, 
Racine,  and  Lope  de  Vega,  yEschylus  and  Euripi- 
des. That  his  poems  have  not  been  successful  on 
the  English  stage  is  no  more  strange  than  that 


The  -Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          251 

they  have  failed  of  wide  success  in  English 
reading-rooms  and  parlors.  As  Mr.  Devey  re- 
marks, "  Without  the  progressive  development  of 
human  action,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  dra- 
matic representation.  A  drama  is  something  to 
be  performed,  not  a  quality  to  be  illustrated  or  a 
set  of  speeches  to  be  spoken."  We  look  in  vain 
in  "  Pippa  Passes,"  in  "  The  Soul's  Tragedy,"  in 
"Andrea  del  Sarto,"  and  'in  similar  monologues, 
for  that  continuity  and  increase  of  power,  for  that 
climacteric  sequence  of  idea  and  form,  which,  to 
an  extent,  marks  all  high  literary  product,  and 
which,  in  dramatic  verse,  is  essential.  We  express 
our  main  objection  to  Browning's  dramatic  efforts 
when  we  say  that  they  are  mere  efforts ;  that  there 
is  no  one  of  them  that  is  thoroughly  finished  and, 
as  such,  satisfactory.  As  we  close  their  reading, 
we  are  inclined  to  adopt  the  title  of  one  of  the 
author's  poems  as  we  ask,  "Wanting  is  —  What?" 
and  answer  in  biblical  terms,  "  Much,  every  way." 
Dramatic  grasp ;  deep  dramatic  passion  and  imag- 
ination ;  dramatic  sequence  of  plot  and  action, 
scene  and  character,  are  wanting;  so  that  the  best 
we  can  do  is  to  say,  in  the  words  of  the  same 
poem,  "  Complete  incompletion,"  "  yet  a  blank  all 
the  same,"  We  may  allow  the  higher  claim  of  the 


Special  Discussions 


poet  himself,  and  call  them  "  dramatic  in  princi- 
ple," as  they  are  not  in  plan,  purposes,  and  results. 
In  speaking  of  Browning's  dramatic  quality,  a 
word  is  needed  as  to  the  lyrical  element  in  his  po- 
etry. Of  his  dramatic  pieces  he  states  that  "  they 
are,  for  the  most  part,  lyric  in  expression."  One 
of  the  earliest  volumes  of  his  collected  poems 
bears  the  double  name  of  "  Dramatic  Romances 
and  Lyrics."  From  these  and  other  indications 
it  would  seem  as  if  he  preferred  to  be  called  a 
dramatist  to  being  called  a  lyrist,  or,  in  so  far  as 
he  was  a  lyrist,  to  have  his  character  as  such 
identified  with  his  dramatic  personality.  There  is, 
beyond  question,  a  distinct  idyllic  element  in  the 
drama;  a  pronounced  emotive  element  common  to 
the  ode  and  the  play  which  makes  it  possible  to 
combine  them  as  dramatic  lyrics  or  lyrical  dramas 
or  dramatic  idylls.  So  clearly  is  this  union  illus- 
trated in  the  verse  before  us  that  it  may  safely  be 
said  that  the  best  feature  of  it  as  dramatic  is  the 
lyrical  one.  It  is  not  creative  function  of  a  high 
order,  nor  constructive  imagination  and  power  of 
presentation,  that  is  visible,  but  a  good  degree  of 
verbal  and  illustrative  excellence;  of  dignified  sen- 
timent and  pathos.  While  he  has  not  enough 
sensibility  and  passion  for  the  high  drama,  he  has 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          253 

quite  enough  for  the  lyrical  requirements  of  it. 
Hence,  we  find  in  some  of  his  poems  passages  of 
exceptional  idyllic  excellence.  Such  are  the  songs 
from  "  Pippa  Passes,"  as 

"The  year's  at  the  spring 
And  day's  at  the  morn ; 
Morning's  at  seven; 
The  hillside's  dew-pearled; 
The  lark's  on  the  wing ; 
The  snail's  on  the  thorn ; 
God's  in  his  heaven — 
All's  right  with  the  world." 

In  such  -examples  as  "  Cristina,"  "  Parting  at 
Morning,"  "A  Face/r  "My  Star,"  "The  Flight 
of  the  Duchess,"  "The  Lost  Leader,"  "  In  a  Gon- 
dola," "By  the  Fireside,"  "In  a  Year,"  "The 
Statue  and  the  Bust,"  "  Too  Late,"  "  Garden  Fan- 
cies," "  Old  Pictures  in  Florence,"  and  in  longer 
poems,  such  as  "  Saul "  and  "  Cleon,"  there  is 
more  of  that  usual  lyrical  fervor  —  enough,  at 
times,  to  make  us  wish  that  the  author  had  given 
more  attention  to  this  order  of  verse.  There  is 
seen  a  good  degree  of  what  Professor  Corson  has 
seen  fit  to  call  "  spiritual  ebb  and  flow."  Even  at 
his  best,  however,  Browning  is  not  a  lyrist  of  the 
first  order.  There  is  the  same  lack  of  symmetry, 
of  excellence  and  sustained  merit,  that  we  have 


254  Special  Discussions 

noted  in  his  dramas.  There  is  little  approach  to 
the  lyrical  sweetness  of  Burns,  or  to  that  delicacy 
of  touch  that  marks  the  masterly  pen  of  Tenny- 
son. The  wonder  is  that,  with  his  peculiar  cast  of 
mind  and  poetic  ideals,  he  should  have  written 
as  lyrically  as  he  did.  It  is  only  when  he  partially 
forgets  his  intellectual  self  and  becomes  more  flex- 
ible, human,  and  objective  that  he  at  all  succeeds, 
where  the  impassioned  must  control  the.  specu- 
lative. The  author  has  written  much  of  his  best 
poetry  when  not  himself;  when  off  his  guard  and 
out  of  his  literary  routine.  We  could  spare  "  Sor- 
dello"  and  "The  Inn  Album"  better  than  the 
songs  of  "  Pippa  Passes  " ;  "Aristophanes'  Apol- 
ogy "  far  better  than  "  Meeting  at  Night "  and 
"  The  Last  Ride  Together."  Would  that  our  am- 
bitious poet  had  better  known  the  limit  of  his 
genius,  and  entered  heartily  into  poetic  competi- 
tion with  Tennyson  and  Swinburne  and  his  own 
gifted  partner  within  the  well-established  lines  of 
lyrical  verse. 

HIS  CLAIMS  AS  A   POETIC  ARTIST 

When  Ruskin  writes,  with  his  eye  on  Brown- 
ing, that  "  the  strength  of  poetry  is  in  its  thoughts, 
not  in  its  forms";  when,  with  the  same  poet  in 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          255 

view,  Swinburne  writes  of  his  "  decisive  and  in- 
cisive faculty  of  thought,"  it  is  understood  that 
Browning's  mental  character,  as  a  poet,  is  praised 
at  the  expense  of  his  character  as  a  poet  artist. 
Most  of  his  warmest  admirers  are  willing  to  yield 
any  claim  to  his  high  merit  as  an  aesthetic  poet, 
if  so  be  the  other  claim  of  mental  acuteness  be 
conceded.  Corson  and  others  take  extreme  posi- 
tions here  when  they  insist  upon  our  author's  spe- 
cial excellence  in  what  is  known  as  the  art  of  verse. 
The  language  of  Landor,  that  he  wished  Brown- 
ing would  "  atticize  a  little,"  is  more  appropriate. 
Whatever  influence  such  poets  as  Shelley  and 
Keats  may  have  had  upon  him,  he  never  approxi- 
mates to  that  degree  of  finish  of  form  so  notable 
in  their  best  verse.  We  have  spoken  of  our  au- 
thor's independence  of  method;  of  his  scorn  of 
precedent  and  tradition.  Nowhere  is  this  more 
apparent  than  in  the  province  of  literary  art.  He 
avows  his  freedom  and  acknowledges  no  master. 
He  purposely  looks  away  from  what  are  called 
the  established  laws  of  verse,  and  would  express 
no  thanks  to  our  American  Lanier  for  interpret- 
ing a  science  of  English  verse.  Had  he  lived  in 
the  Elizabethan  Age,  he  might  have  written  in 
the  syllabic  method  of  the  classical  poets ;  and  had 


256  Special  Discussions 

he  lived  in  the  time  of  Pope,  he  might  have  used 
the  accentual  method  —  running  counter,  in  each 
instance,  to  the  prevailing  habit  of  the  time.  He 
is  thus  a  law  unto  himself,  which  means  that  he 
was  subject  to  no  law.  Poetic  license  was  with 
him  a  sacred  principle.  His  extreme  advocates 
justify  this  indifference  to  art  on  account  of  the 
wealth  of  his  subject-matter  —  too  copious  and 
complex  to  be  applied  in  obedience  to  the  accepted 
canons  of  the  schools.  "  He  has  so  much  materi- 
al," says  Professor  Corson,  "  such  a  large  thought 
and  passion  capital,  that  we  never  find  him  mak- 
ing a  little  go  a  great  way  " ;  as  if,  indeed,  literary 
art  were  a  cunning  device  to  conceal  poverty  of 
idea  by  a  superabundance  of  words.  There  have 
been  English  poets  with  equal  mental  endowment 
who  have  been,  as  well,  consummate  artists  of  ex- 
pression, and,  in  this  respect,  our  author's  right- 
ful masters.  Thought  only  is  not  sufficient  to 
constitute  a  poet  of  the  first  order.  There  must 
be  special  aptitude  in  its  -expression.  Browning's 
limitations  may,  hence,  be  seen  in  that  he  had  no 
special  appreciation  of  poetry  as  an  art,  and  no 
special  ability  to  realize  such  an  ideal,  had  he  pos- 
sessed it.  What  Ruskin  calls  "  his  seemingly  care- 
less and  too  rugged  rhymes  "  are  in  reality  such. 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          25? 

He  is  unconscious  of  the  purely  aesthetic  side  of 
verse,  as  distinct  from  prose.  When  Bagehot,  in 
his  "  Literary  Studies,"  speaks  of  "  pure  art,"  as 
illustrated  in  Wordsworth,  and  "  ornate  art,"  in 
Tennyson,  he  adds  a  reference  to  the  "  grotesque 
art,"  as  seen  in  Browning.  Outside  the  narrow 
area  of  his  songs  and  shorter  dramatic  lyrics,  the 
reader  may  turn  to  almost  any  page  of  his  longer 
poems,  such  as  "  The  Inn  Album,"  to  see  an  ex- 
ample of  this  "  grotesqueness."  There  is  an  un- 
naturalness  of  manner  that  is  itself  a  violation  of 
the  first  principles  of  art.  The  diction  is  stilted, 
prolix,  and  unduly  quaint.  There  is  the  evidence 
of  overstudy  —  what  Mr.  Hutton  has  happily 
termed  "  the  crowded  notebook  style."  Even  in 
the  sphere  of  blank  verse,  where  the  author  is  at 
his  best,  the  violations  of  rhythm,  accent,  meter, 
and  general  structure  are  too  frequent  and  flagrant 
to  be  overlooked.  This  grotesqueness,  though  ad- 
mitted by  his  admirers,  is  defended  on  the  theory 
that,  when  used,  there  was  "  an  artistic  occasion  " 
for  it,  and  that  in  no  other  way  could  he  express 
the  reality  of  his  thought.  This  is  nothing  else 
than  saying  that  Browning's  thought  was  as  gro- 
tesque as  his  art,  and  forces  us  to  the  sweeping 
conclusion  that  each  must  therefore  be  considered 


258  Special  Discussions 

as  out  of  the  order  of  nature.  It  is  this  that  Mr. 
Devey  has  in.  mind  when  he  speaks  of  the  "  jagged 
meter  "  of  "  The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  and  of  the 
irregularity  of  much  of  his  other  verse.  This  fail- 
ure in  literary  art  is  all  the  more  noticeable  in  an 
age  where  governing  tendencies  are  in  this  direc- 
tion —  an  age  of  structural  verse,  in  the  aesthetic 
sense.  Contemporary  with  Tennyson,  Swinburne, 
Arnold,  Morris,  and  Rossetti,  art  as  art  has  a  com- 
manding place.  Conceding  to  Browning  what  has 
been  called  "  a  reasonable  rhythm "  and  an  oc- 
casional evidence  of  high  poetic  taste,  the  body  of 
his  verse  is  unartistic  —  marked  by  what  Mr. 
Stedman  terms  "  defective  expression." 

THE   ALLEGED  OBSCURITY  OF    HIS   VERSE 

We  are  still  dealing  with  our  poet  as  an  artist, 
and  yet  this  question  of  the  clearness  or  obscurity 
of  his  work  has  become  so  prominent  in  modern 
criticism  that  we  must  discuss  it  as  an  independ- 
ent topic.  It  is  to  this  repeated  charge  of  obscur- 
ity that  the  poet  himself  refers,  and  most  especially 
in  the  prefatory  note  to  "  Selections "  that  he 
published  in  1872.  Herein  he  states  that  "  he  ap- 
prehends no  more  charges  of  being  willfully  ob- 
scure," the  obscurity  itself,  it  will  be  noted,  not 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          259 

being  denied.  It  is  with  the  fact  of  his  obscurity, 
rather  than  with  the  explanation  of  it,  that  we 
have  to  do.  When  Thackeray,  while  in  America, 
noted  one  day,  on  the  table  of  his  host,  a  copy  of 
our  poet's  works,  he  remarked,  "  What,  do  you 
read  Browning  and  understand  him  ?  "  as  he  sig- 
nificantly added,  "  I  wish  I  could,  but  I  have  no 
head  above  my  eyes."  Some  of  his  critics  have 
spoken  of  his  verse  as  past  all  comprehension  or 
apprehension.  What  one  writes  of  "  Sordello " 
might  be  said  of  each  of  several  of  his  poems :  "A 
work  which  very  few  people  have  tried  to  get 
through,  and  out  of  the  handful  who  have  not  one 
has  arrived  at  the  singular  felicity  of  deciphering 
its  meaning."  The  fault  is  not  an  occasional  or  a 
necessary  one,  but  pervasive  and  without  cause. 
Others  have  treated  equally  difficult  themes,  have 
struggled  equally  long  to  interpret  them,  and 
have  in  the  main  succeeded.  A  glance  at  the  num- 
ber and  increasing  duties  of  what  are  called 
"  schools  of  interpretation  of  Browning,"  such  as 
the  Browning  Society  of  London,  is  sufficient  to 
illustrate  the  point  in  question,  and  is  in  itself 
proof  positive  of  the  inherent  difficulty,  if  not  im- 
possibility, of  any  clear  interpretation.  Apart 
from  such  separate  schools,  most  of  the  treatises 


260  Special  Discussions 

written  upon  this  poetry  give  conspicuous  place  to 
this  mooted  question  —  more  agitated  now  than 
ever  before.  It  is  more  than  suggestive  to  take  in 
hand  some  of  these  attempts  at  elucidation,  such  as 
Dowden's,  Johnson's,  Cooke's,  Symond's,  and  Cor- 
son's,  and  note  the  "  confusion,  worse  confound- 
ed." Some  of  them  are  strikingly  called  "Intro- 
ductions to  the  Study  of  Browning."  The  com- 
mentator does  not  purpose  to  get  much  beyond  the 
threshold  of  these  poems.  We  read  the  alleged 
explanations,  and  still  ask  with  Goethe  for  "  more 
light."  We  read  again  the  original,  and  are 
baffled.  Thinking  that  if  this  perplexity  is  a  mark 
of  the  earlier  efforts  it  will  disappear  as  the  poet 
advances  in  years,  we  are  more  than  discouraged 
when  we  note  that  obscurity  increases  with  age 
and  practice.  Browning's  latest  poems  defy  the 
best  attempts  fully  to  explain  them.  After 
"  Luria  "  and  some  of  his  earlier  poems,  the  poet 
was  so  aggrieved  by  what  he  deemed  an  unappre- 
ciative  public  that  he  threatened  to  forego  all  sim- 
ilar efforts.  Alfred  Austin,  the  late  laureate,  au- 
thor of  "  The  Poetry  of  the  Period,"  as  also  not  a 
few  writers  of  note  in  the  British  Reviews,  pre- 
ferred this  charge  and  substantiated  it.  The  poet, 
in  "  Pacchiarotto "  and  elsewhere,  proceeds  to 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          261 

answer,  and  in  the  added  obscurity  of  the  answer 
itself  justifies  the  charge  of  obscurity  in  the  poems. 
When  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Birrell,  in  "  Obiter 
Dicta,"  that  a  poet  may  "  sometimes  be  misty," 
that  "  we  need  be  at  no  pains  to  find  a  meaning 
for  everything  Mr.  Browning  has  written  " ;  and 
when  he  intimates  that  if  the  lines  are  unintel- 
ligible so  much  the  worse  for  the  reader's  as- 
sumed sanity,  we  must  in  self-defense  turn  to  the 
quotation  which  the  critic  himself  places  on  his 
title-page,  as  it  reads,  "An  obiter  dictum  is  a  gra- 
tuitous opinion,  which,  whether  it  be  wise  or  fool- 
ish, right  or  wrong,  bindeth  none  —  not  even  the 
lips  that  utter  it."  This  being  so,  we  cut  loose 
from  the  critic's  opinion  and  prefer  to  hold  by  the 
testimony  of  facts.  Browning's  cast  of  mind  is 
ultra-intellectual,  idealistic,  in  the  Hegelian  sense. 
He  is  introspective  to  a  fault,  and  is  more  mys- 
tical in  verse  than  are  Carlyle  and  Emerson  in 
prose.  He  seems  to  get  hold  of  great  truths  in 
parts,  quite  unable  to  study  them  in  their  organic 
unity  and  as  vitally  related  to  the  great  body  of 
truth.  The  nature  of  his  themes,  as  largely  medi- 
eval and  visionary,  insures  this  complexity.  His 
methods  of  exposition  are  so  unique  as  to  be  ab- 
normal. It  is  not  only  such  verbal  irregularity  as 


262  Special  Discussions 

the  suppression  of  the  relative,  the  omission  of  the 
sign  of  the  infinitive,  the  substitution  of  indicative 
for  subjunctive,  and  similar  anomalies,  which 
Professor  Corson  concedes  only  to  justify;  but 
there  is  so  constant  a  presence  of  exceptional 
usage  as  to  make  it  the  law  of  usage,  and  thus 
reverse  all  accepted  principles  of  structure  and 
idiom.  Mrs.  Browning  had  quite  enough  of  this 
verbal  eccentricity.  Her  more  independent  hus- 
band has  more  than  enough.  In  the  unsettled 
forms  of  Elizabethan  English,  Shakespeare  and 
others  might  have  thus  written,  as  they  often  did, 
without  censure;  but  not  so  may  our  living  poets 
write  in  the  settled  period  of  Modern  English. 

"  Was  it  '  clearness  of  words  which  convey  thought '  ?  " 
the  poet  asks  in  "  Pacchiarotto  " ;  and  we  answer, 
Clearness  of  words  indicates  clearness  of  think- 
ing. However  "  big  and  bouncing  "  thought  may 
be,  the  English  tongue  can  express  it  with  sub- 
stantial plainness.  In  fine,  we  see  in  this  verse 
too  evident  an  attempt  at  overstatement.  The 
poet  is  ever  striving  to  express  his  ideas  and  ever 
failing,  partly  because  he  tries  too  severely,  and 
partly  because  of  the  essential  obscurity  of  the 
thought  itself  as  it  lies  before  him.  We  are  not 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          263 

to  be  told  here  that  "  there  are  readers  and  read- 
ers " ;  that  reading  is  nowadays  "  superficial  " ;  or 
to  be  told  by  the  poet  himself  that  his  verse  is  not 
to  be  regarded  "  as  a  substitute  for  a  game  of 
dominoes  to  an  idle  man."  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  difficulty  in  the  clear  expression  of  germinal 
ideas.  There  are  what  Bacon  calls  "  books  to  be 
weighed  and  considered."  There  is  such  a  char- 
acter in  literature  as  the  "  idle  reader,"  who  with- 
out brains  himself  does  not  know  the  article  when 
he  sees  it  in  others.  This  is  all  true,  and  yet  clear 
ideas,  as  a  rule,  can  be  clearly  stated.  Clearness 
is  a  primal  law  of  expression,  and,  as  a  rule,  is  at- 
tainable. Modern  readers  there  are  who  bring 
enough  brains  to  their  reading  to  interpret  the  in- 
terpretable,  and  enough  charity  to  condone  oc- 
casional obscurity.  When,  however,  all  literary 
relations  are  reversed  and  cloudiness  becomes  a 
settled  condition  of  the  horizon,  we  submit  that 
the  reader  is  exempted  and  the  poet  at  fault. 
"  Genius  is  erratic,"  it  is  said ;  but  if  too  erratic, 
genius  then  descends  below  the  level  of  common 
ability  and  we  crave  the  presence  of  the  average 
man  who  has  no  more  ability  than  he  can  safely 
carry.  What  Lamb  has  called  "  the  sanity  of  true 
genius  "  is  desirable,  and  finds  its  full  expression 


264  Special  Discussions 

in  such  superior  minds  as  Milton,  Shakespeare, 
Goethe,  and  Dante.  The  result  of  much  of  our 
reading  of  "Browning  is  mental  confusion;  and 
this,  we  maintain,  is  an  unpardonable  sin.  It  is 
an  example,  at  least,  of  what  Mr.  Collins  calls 
"  the  illustrious  obscure." 

HIS    RANK    AND    FUTURE 

Browning's  relative  rank  it  is  difficult  to  fix,  as 
it  is  also  to  forecast  his  permanent  reputation.  He 
is  said  to  have  "  succeeded  by  a  series  of  failures." 
There  is  thus  a  sense  in  which  he  is  great  by  his 
faults.  He  is,  certainly,  so  conspicuous  by  reason 
of  them  as  to  have  assumed  a  commanding  posi- 
tion in  modern  England.  It  is  quite  unquestion- 
able that,  in  current  criticism,  he  ranks  with  the 
greatest  bards  of  our  era.  There  is  a  kind  of  tacit 
agreement  to  this  effect.  The  question  is  still  an 
open  one,  however,  whether  he  is  entitled  to  such 
honor,  and  whether  he  will  be  able  to  maintain  it, 
if  accorded  him.  We  have  discussed  his  excellen- 
cies and  errors,  his  genius  and  want  of  genius, 
and  find  in  such  apparent  contradictions  the  diffi- 
culty of  assigning  him  with  critical  justice  his  de- 
served status.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  has  never 
been,  as  he  is  not  now,  a  popular  poet.  Although 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          265 

his  admirers  have  increased  of  late,  as  also  the 
number  of  those  who  conscientiously  study  his 
pages,  the  following  is  not  large,  while  it  must  be 
conceded  that  many  read  him  because  it  is,  in  cer- 
tain circles,  the  mode.  It  is  one  of  the  severest 
reflections  upon  our  poet's  style  and  work  that 
many  of  those  who  affect  to  understand  him  are 
not  known  ever. to  have  understood  any  one  else, 
so  that  we  are  tempted  to  credit  their  boasted 
acumen  to  the  score  of  literary  fastidiousness. 
There  are  a  few  metaphysical  minds  who  may  with 
truth  be  said  to  relish  Browning,  not  because  they 
understand  him,  but  because  they  do  not,  or,  mak- 
ing a  mental  effort  to  do  it,  think  they  succeed. 
"  On  the  whole,"  he  says,  "  I  get  my  deserts ;  not 
a  crowd,  but  a  few  I  value  more."  That  is,  he  is 
the  poet  of  a  select  few,  and,  to  that  extent,  a  true 
poet.  For  the  great  body  of  intelligent  English 
readers  he  cannot  be  made  attractive. 

Browning's  future  as  a  poet  will  very  largely 
depend  on  literary  and  philosophic  tendencies.  If 
abstract  speculation  becomes  the  dominant  type  in 
verse,  his  constituency  will  increase.  If  literary 
form  recede  from  its  present  prominence,  and  the 
poet's  idea,  clear  or  obscure,  full  or  partial,  be  all 
that  is  needed,  a  similar  appreciation  will  ensue. 


266  Special  Discussions 

If,  however,  as  is  to  be  hoped,  an  order  of  litera- 
ture shall  prevail  in  modern  England  in  which 
the  mental  strength  of  Wordsworth  will  combine 
with  the  aesthetic  grace  of  Tennyson  and  the  im- 
passioned fervor  of  Mrs.  Browning,  this  poetry 
will  be  remanded  to  an  ever-narrower  area  of  in- 
fluence, and  have  but  little  fascination  for  any  save 
those  who  are  never  so  happy  as  when  vainly  seek- 
ing to  find  what  is  "  past  finding  out."  Intellec- 
tual verse  is  one  thing ;  psychological  abstraction 
in  meter  is  another.  High  thinking  is  one  thing; 
verbal  jugglery  and  trick  of  phrase  are  another. 
Dramatic  and  lyric  passion  is  one  thing ;  spasmodic 
outbursts  of  sentiment  are  another. 

The  highest  praise  we  may  accord  to  Browning, 
conceding  all  his  -errors,  is  this:  that  he  has  im- 
parted to  English  poetry  a  good  degree  of  mental 
stimulus,  and  has  thus  quickened  the  general  lit- 
erary life  of  modern  England.  While,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  is  not  intellectually  clear,  he  is  in- 
tellectually suggestive;  and  while  he  is  not,  if  we 
may  coin  a  word,  literarily  artistic,  he  is  literarily 
vital  and  impressive ;  so  that  eveo  where  our  judg- 
ment is  not  enlightened  and  our  aesthetic  taste 
gratified,  our  general  faculties,  rational  and  emo- 
tional, are  the  subjects  of  a  genuine  and  governing 


The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning          26? 

impulse  toward  truth  and  goodness  and  beauty. 
English  letters  could  as  little  spare  such  a  repre- 
sentative spirit  as  it  could  spare  such  command- 
ing names  as  Carlyle  and  Emerson.  In  this  sense, 
indeed,  Robert  Browning  is  far  more  than  a  poet. 
He  is  a  poetic  and  personal  force  instinct  with 
vital  energy.  In  this  sense,  indeed,  what  he  has 
written  is  a  something  far  greater  than  poetry.  It 
is  an  aspiration  and  an  inspiration  —  the  profound 
and  passionate  outcry  of  the  soul  for  the  vision 
and  the  voice  of  God. 


VII 

A  STUDY  OF  MRS.  BROWNING 

THE  history  of  English  literature,  and,  most  es- 
pecially, of  English  poetry,  would  be  incomplete 
apart  from  the  study  of  the  Brownings  —  Robert 
and  Elizabeth  Barrett.  Closely  related  in  their  lit- 
erary life,  quite  apart  from  the  fact  of  their  mar- 
riage, we  think  of  them  together,  somewhat  as 
we  think  of  the  brothers  Hare,  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  of  Alice  and  Phoebe  Gary,  of  Charlotte 
and  Emily  Bronte,  of  Calvin  E.  and  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe.  Whatever  their  relations  and  re- 
semblances, however,  their  differences  of  person- 
ality and  of  literary  product  are  so  marked  that 
they  must  be  approached  and  studied  from  differ- 
ent points  of  view,  on  different  methods,  and  as 
representing  radically  distinct  schools  and  types  of 
literary  art.  Mrs.  Browning  may  thus  be  said  to 
stand  alone  in  her  poetic  life  and  work,  not  only 
as  contrasted  with  her  husband,  but  with  the  other 
prominent  poets  of  the  Victorian  Era.  If  Lord 
Tennyson  represents  the  artistic  school  in  poetry 
and  polite  letters;  Robert  Browning,  the  specifi- 
268 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  269 

cally  intellectual  school;  and  Mr.  Swinburne,  the 
impassioned  order  of  verse  on  the  sensuous  and, 
at  times,  the  sensual  side:  Mrs.  Browning  is  the 
characteristic  exponent  of  emotional  English  verse 
in  its  higher  and  purer  forms  —  the  purest  pas- 
sionate poetess  of  Modern  English  letters. 

LIFE    AND    WRITINGS 

Born  in  1809,  at  Hope  End,  near  Ledberry,  with- 
in one  year  of  the  birth  of  Tennyson,  and  three 
years  of  that  of  her  husband,  her  literary  career 
may  be  said  to  have  begun  with  theirs.  Nurtured 
in  a  home  of  wealth,  with  every  educational  facil- 
ity offered  her,  it  is  not  strange  that,  with  her 
natural  mental  endowments  and  ever-increasing 
love  of  truth  and  knowledge,  she  should  early  have 
accomplished  what  she  did  in  the  line  of  intellec- 
tual acquisition  and  in  preparation  for  the  great 
poetic  career  that  lay  before  her.  Beginning  her 
production  of  verse  as  early  as  at  ten  years  of 
age,  her  first  publication  was  in  1826,  at  the  age 
of  seventeen  —  "An  Essay  on  Mind,  and  Other 
Poems,"  written  in  clear  heroic  meter.  In  1833, 
there  followed  a  translation  of  the  "  Prometheus 
Bound  "  of  vEschylus.  Premature  and  imperfect 
as  these  first  productions  were,  they  had  their 


270  Special  Discussions 

place  as  marking  a  tendency  in  her  individual  his- 
tory, and  opened  the  way  for  better  results  in  the 
years  to  follow.  In  1838  "  Seraphim,  and  Other 
Poems  "  appeared,  while  in  1844  her  poems  were 
first  edited  in  collected  form.  In  1846  the  most 
significant  event  of  her  life  occurred,  in  her  mar- 
riage, when  she  and  Mr.  Browning  took  up  their 
residence  in  Florence,  the  city  of  art,  romance, 
and  song.  Again  in  London,  for  a  while,  in  1851, 
she  lived  in  great  seclusion  and  physical  weakness, 
writing  and  reading  in  the  intervals  of  suffering, 
and  publishing,  in  1856,  her  most  elaborate  poem, 
"Aurora  Leigh."  Returning  to  Florence,  she  had 
but  a  few  years  to  live,  dying  in  peace  June  29, 
1861,  at  the  early  age  of  fifty-two.  Her  grave, 
outside  the  city,  has  been  from  that  day  to  this  the 
resort  of  all  travelers  to  Italy  who  know  anything 
of  the  history  of  English  verse  and  the  part  that 
this  gifted  authoress  has  taken  therein.  As  far  as 
her  prose  writings  are  concerned,  it  is  in  place 
here  to  state  that  they  consisted  of  the  following: 
"Early  Letters"  to  R.  H.  Home,  1839-43; 
"  Chaucer  Modernized,"  1840 ;  "A  New  Spirit  of 
the  Age,"  1843-45;  "Last  Letters  on  General 
Topics " ;  "  The  Book  of  the  Poets,  Chaucer- 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  271 

Tennyson  " ;  "  Some  Account  of  the  Greek  Chris- 
tian Poets." 

In  reviewing  the  life  of  Mrs.  Browning,  in  so 
far  as  it  can  be  dissociated  from  her  poetry,  it  may 
safely  be  embodied  in  the  one  word  "  character." 
In  whatever  phase  we  may  be  pleased  to  study 
character, —  in  its  constituent  elements,  in  the 
modes  of  its  manifestations  or  in  its  governing 
motives  and  influence  upon  others, —  we  find  in  her 
unique  personality  every  essential  of  completeness. 
She  was,  in  the  fullest  sense,  of  the  word,  a  woman, 
illustrating  the  strength  and  grace  of  womanhood: 
that  fineness  of  perception  and  delicacy  of  senti- 
ment and  fullness  of  sympathy  that  marks  the  fem- 
inine ideal.  English  womanhood  was  consecrated 
by  her  life.  It  has  been  through  her  work  and 
teaching  a  more  sacred  thing  than  ever  and  more 
intimately  identified  with  all  true  culture.  From 
first  to  last,  she  was  ingenuously  herself,  ever 
acting  under  the  clearest  convictions  of  duty,  and 
with  that  characteristic  modesty  that  became,  alike, 
the  maiden,  the  wife,  the  mother,  the  friend,  and 
the  woman  of  letters.  Shy  and  unobtrusive  as  it 
was  possible  for  a  person  to  be,  she  lived  in  her 
retiracy  in  London  and  Florence,  bravely  suffer- 
ing what  it  was  hers  to  suffer,  and  chiefly  desiring 


272  Special  Discussions 

to  make  the  world  brighter  and  better  by  what 
she  had  to  give  it.  It  is  this  supreme  element  of 
character  that  marks  the  product  of  her  pen.  As 
one  has  well  expressed  it,  "  With  her,  everything 
was  religion."  What  she  wrote  was  unobjection- 
able, not  simply  in  the  technical,  ethical  sense  of 
that  term,  but  it  was  suffused  and  surcharged  with 
the  very  essence  of  piety;  clean  and  chaste  and 
white  as  the  snow  of  heaven;  carrying  with  it, 
wherever  it  went,  a  gracious  and  subduing  influ- 
ence, perceptible  to  those  only  whose  inner  life  is 
in  harmony  with  hers.  We  can  express  this  pe- 
culiar quality  of  her  life  and  writings  in  no  better 
way  than  by  calling  it  spirituality;  an  unearthly 
something  in  all  her  earthly  works ;  a  "  presence 
and  a  potency "  of  that  other-worldliness  by 
which  all  human  effort  is  sanctified  and  lifted 
above  the  common  plane  of  life.  Hence  it  is  that 
such  poetry  can  never  be  widely  popular  in  the 
current  sense  of  that  term.  Though  it  would  not 
be  correct  to  say  that  Mrs.  Browning's  verse  is 
unpopular  in  the  sense  in  which  Mark  Akenside's 
is,  or  Rogers's  or  Tupper's  is,  it  will,  still,  always 
be  best  appreciated  by  that  chosen  few  in  every 
nation  who  look  for  character  in  literature  and  for 
all  those  delicate  and  elevating  qualities  of  style 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  273 

that  are  but  the  reflex  of  character  upon  the  print- 
ed page.  Hence  the  attractiveness  of  her  poetry 
to  British  and  American  womanhood ;  not  simply 
because  it  is  genuine  poetry  and,  as  such,  fraught 
with  interest,  but,  mainly,  because  of  the  radiant 
soul  that  is  in  it.  So  intensely  transforming  is 
this  illuminating  presence,  that  at  times  it  assumes 
a  kind  of  beatific  charm  and  makes  it  impossible 
for  any  mind  within  the  area  of  its  influence  to 
think  of  anything  but  God  and  goodness  and  truth 
and  virtue.  Mrs.  Browning  was  constitutionally 
good,  pre-inclined  to  faith,  and  when  she  sat  down 
to  express  her  thoughts  it  was  simply  an  attempt 
to  utter  the  unutterable  longing  within  her  that 
God  might  be  pleased  to  speak  through  her  to  her 
fellow-men  on  behalf  of  truth  and  beauty.  We  may 
now  appropriately  turn  to 

THE    CHARACTERISTICS   OF   HER   POETRY 

1.  Its  scholarly  quality  is,  first  of  all,  notice- 
able. As  already  intimated,  Mrs.  Browning  had 
all  the  facilities  of  education  offered  her  in  early 
life  and  fully  availed  herself  of  them.  She  was 
educated,  as  one  has  expressed  it,  "  in  a  masculine 
range  of  studies,"  reading  all  that  was  worth  read- 
ing, and  ever  adding  thereby  to  those  rich  stores 


274  Special  Discussions 

of  knowledge  by  which  she  was  "  furnished  forth  " 
m  times  of  literary  need.  On  Casa  Guidi,  in  Flor- 
ence, it  is  suggestive  to  read  the  tribute  which 
loving  hands  placed  there,  as  they  accord  to  her, 
among  other  excellences,  "  the  wisdom  of  a  sage." 
Her  profound  acquaintance  with  the  original  He- 
brew Scriptures  is  well  known.  There  is  a  strik- 
ing combination  of  manliness  and  womanliness^  as 
we  read  of  her  in  London,  confined  to  her  room 
by  illness,  holding  her  pen  in  one  hand  and  some 
ancient  classic  in  the  other,  aiming  to  reproduce, 
in  modern  form,  the  teaching  and  spirit  of  the 
dead.  Her  familiarity  with  the  Greek  poets  and 
authors  was  qf  a  high  scholarly  order,  far  differ- 
ent from  that  aesthetic  and  courtly  knowledge  of 
them  which  was  possessed  by  Queen  Elizabeth. 
She  studied  them  because  she  loved  them  and  be- 
cause she  felt  that,  in  and  through  them,  she 
could  better  express  to  the  England  of  her  day 
her  own  idea  and  ideal  of  poetry.  This  scholarly 
bent  of  her  mind  and  art  is  best  seen  in  the  class  of 
themes  she  so  often  presented  in  poetic  form.  The 
second  production  of  her  pen,  as  far  back  as  1833, 
was  a  translation  of  the  "  Prometheus  "  of  yEschy- 
lus.  In  keeping  with  this  we  note,  in  addition, 
translations  and  paraphrases  from  Theocritus, 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  275 

Homer,  Hesiod,  Anacreon,  Euripides,  and  other 
Greek  writers.  Her  thorough  acquaintance  with 
the  language,  literature,  and  people  of  Italy  is 
also  noteworthy,  while  her  "  Sonnets  from  the 
Portuguese,"  and  her  "  Catarina  to  Camoens " 
serve  still  more  fully  to  widen  the  scope  of  her 
classical  learning.  Outside  of  poetry,  moreover, 
her  papers  on  "  The  Greek  Christian  Poets  "  serve 
to  confirm  the  scope  of  her  studies,  as  also  their 
distinctively  ethical  bearing.  In  a  word,  Mrs. 
Browning  was  a  scholar,  reaching  rare  results 
within  the  special  province  of  linguistic  learning, 
and  results  scarcely  less  conspicuous  within  the 
broader  province  of  general  knowledge.  More 
and  better  than  this,  she  was  eminently  intel- 
lectual ;  able  to  originate  as  well  as  to  acquire,  and 
on  the  basis  of  collected  facts  and  truths  to  gen- 
eralize up  to  salient  laws  and  principles.  Even  in 
her  work  as  a  translator,  she  evinces  her  inde- 
pendent judgment  and,  within  the  sphere  of 
original  composition,  so  uses  the  suggestions  of 
others  as  to  make  them  her  own.  Not  intellectual 
in  the  same  sense  in  which  Robert  Browning  is, 
she  is,  still,  intellectual,  and  is  so  in  fullest  keep- 
ing with  her  character  as  a  woman.  She  has  that 
feminine  order  of  intellectuality  by  which  truth  is 


276  Special  Discussions 

somewhat  softened  and  subdued  "as  it  passes  out 
through  the  sensibilities  into  external  form.  There 
is  nothing  of  the  dogmatic  or  even  mentally  mas- 
culine, as  these  properly  belong  to  the  intellect  of 
the  man;  nothing  of  that  cold  abstraction  of  rea- 
son and  logical  process  that  marks  most  of  the 
great  philosophic  thinkers,  but  a  womanly  quality 
of  thought  germane  to  her  sex  and  none  the  less 
effective  in  its  place  and  way.  Learned  without 
being  pedantic ;  versed  in  literature  without  being 
bookish  and  reserved ;  she  secured  the  best  pos- 
sible results  from  the  collected  wisdom  of  the 
ancients  and  practically  concealed  her  scholarship 
in  the  generous  use  she  made  of  it. 

Scholarly  poets  are  in  all  ages  and  literatures 
rare.  Scholarly  poetesses  are  still  more  so.  In 
the  current  tendency  to  connect  the  art  of  poetry 
with  the  want  of  mental  vigor,  and  the  work  of 
female  authorship  with  the  superficial  and  roman- 
tic, it  is  well  to  remember  that,  in  the  case  of  Mrs. 
Browning,  as  in  that  of  George  Eliot,  sound  learn- 
ing and  true  poetic  power  may  go  together  —  that 
such  a  product  may  be  possible  as  intellectual 
verse.  Whatever  fault  Mrs.  Browning's  work 
may  possess,  it  can  never  be  charged  with  that  of 
superficiality.  She  pretends  to  no  knowledge  that 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  277 

she  does  not  possess  and  assumes  no  mental  atti- 
tude that  she  cannot  sustain.  What  she  has  writ- 
ten is,  in  the  best  sense,  studied,  and,  as  her 
character  must  commend  itself  to  all  pure-minded 
seekers  after  truth,  her  multiplied  attainments 
must  commend  themselves  to  all  those  who  prize 
substance  above  form. 

2.  Poetic  quality,  or  essence,  is  found  in  her 
verse.  We  mean  by  this  nothing  less  than  poetic 
genius.  Whatever  else  Mrs.  Browning  was  or 
was  not,  she  was  a  poetess,  "  the  most  inspired 
woman,"  says  one,  "  of  all  who  have  composed  in 
ancient  or  modern  tongues."  This  is  high  eulo- 
gium  and  valid  concession.  The  most  unsparing 
critics  of  her  verse  have  not  ventured  to  question 
it,  but  granting  it  at  the  outset,  have  aimed  to 
modify  its  meaning  and  reduce  the  measure  of  its 
influence  in  the  world.  She  was  a  poetess,  not  in 
the  sense  in  which  Chaucer  and  Burns  and  Words- 
worth are  poets,  but  just  as  truly  as  were  they. 
In  her  sphere  and  manner,  she  possessed  the  po- 
et's nature  and  endowment,  as  did  they,  and  can- 
not, thus,  be  classified  with  those  poets  of  every 
nation  concerning  whom  it  is  difficult  to  deter- 
mine whether  or  not  they  have  a  legitimate  place 
among  those  who  are  called  by  the  Muses  to  sing. 


Special  Discussions 


A  brief  examination  of  Mrs.  Browning's  poetic 
character  and  work  will  confirm  her  right  to  the 
position  here  assigned  her. 

(a)  The  gift  of  poetic  imagination  was  hers. 
Though  not  devoid  of  that  philosophic  imagina- 
tion which  marks  a  high  order  of  mental  power, 
she  exhibited  far  more  fully  this  distinctively  lit- 
erary type  of  imaginative  function.  Whatever 
share  of  the  "  faculty  divine  "  she  may  have  had, 
she  had  a  yet  larger  share  of  the  "  vision  divine," 
by  which,  in  Shakespearean  phrase,  she  was  en- 
abled "  to  glance  from  heaven  to  earth  and  earth 
to  heaven."  She  had  the  "  poet's  eye  "  in  some- 
thing of  the  spaciousness  of  its  sweep  and  the 
keenness  of  its  view.  How  signally  this  particular 
feature  is  illustrated  in  her  "  Vision  of  the  Poets," 
the  very  name  of  which  indicates  the  office  of  this 
poetic  insight  and  outlook;  in  whose  comprehen- 
sive view  the  past  and  the  future,  heaven  and 
earth,  God  and  man,  are  alike  included!  In  "A 
Drama  of  Exile,"  "The  Seraphim,"  "A  Rhap- 
sody of  Life's  Progress,"  and  other  shorter 
poems,  this  salient  characteristic  is  visible,  while 
that  notable  dramatic  cast  that  appears  in  her 
translations  and  much  of  her  original  work  is  con- 
spicuously of  this  delineative  order.  Nor  is  it 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  279 

necessary  to  discuss,  just  here,  the  particular 
measure  of  this  quality  in  her  poetic  nature,  as 
compared  with  its  expression  in  other  English 
bards.  It  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  main- 
tain that  she  possessed  it  sufficiently  fully  to  give 
her  a  commanding  place  among  the  exponents  of 
British  verse.  The  appellation  that  has  been  given 
her  — "  the  female  Shakespeare  of  England," 
-while  of  the  nature  of  extreme  honor,  clearly 
evinces  the  high  estimate  placed  upon  the  histri- 
onic feature  of  her  mind  and  art.  Her  character 
as  a  woman;  her  constant  recourse  to  the  pages 
of  the  classical  and  medieval  poets;  the  romantic 
circumstances  of  her  early  life  and  her  marriage ; 
her  residence  in  Italy  and  fondness  for  its  history 
and  future ;  her  physical  invalidity  and  Christian 
ideals  —  all  combined  to  strengthen,  this  imagi- 
native side  of  her  being  and  make  whatever  she 
wrote  more  graphic  and  objective.  Her  very  per- 
sonality and  life  had  so  much  of  this  supernal  ele- 
ment that  Mr.  Stedman  goes  so  far  as  to  call  her 
"  that  ethereal  creature "  whose  home  was  alike 
on  earth  and  in  the  skies. 

(b)  Poetic  sensibility  and  sympathy  were  hers. 
It  is  at  this  point  that  Mrs.  Browning's  character 
and  authorship  assume  their  clearest  and  most  sat- 


280  Special  Discussions 

isfactory  forms.  She  was,  preeminently,  a  woman 
of  feeling  —  deep,  fine,  and  overflowing  — enter- 
ing with  the  fullest  intensity  of  interest  into  all 
that  won  her  heart,  and  thus  inspiring  all  around 
her  with  a  corresponding  love  and  zeal.  Her 
womanly  nature  seemed  to  be  thoroughly  at  home 
in  this  devotion  to  what  Milton  called  "  sensuous 
and  passionate  "  song.  If,  as  we  are  told,  "  the 
highest  mission  of  a  female  poet  is  the  expression 
of  love,"  then  Mrs.  Browning  reached  the  upper- 
most level  of  possibility  in  this  direction.  When 
studying  her  pages  from  this  point  of  view,  we 
think,  naturally,  of  all  those  English  poets  espe- 
cially marked  by  the  emotive  element  —  of  Chau- 
cer, Burns,  Cowper,  Goldsmith,  Charlotte  Bronte, 
and  Jean  Ingelow.  Critics  have  spoken  of  her 
"  nobility  of  feeling  "  as  a  prominent  feature.  We 
prefer  to  call  it  delicacy  and  wealth  of  feeling. 
There  is  in  her  poetry  that  fineness  of  discern- 
ment and  fullness  of  expression  that  bespeak  a 
true  conception  of  the  function  of  verse  and  an 
ardent  desire  to  be  of  service  to  mankind.  No 
writer  of  English  poetry  has  evinced  more  de- 
cided tenderness  of  spirit.  It  is  seen  not  simply 
in  her  sonnets  and  shorter  idyllic  poems,  but  in 
the  entire  body  of  her  verse,  and  often  in  verse 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  281 

which  from  its  theme  and  method  might  be  termed 
didactic.  It  is  found  in  "Aurora  Leigh,"  as  well 
as  in  "  Cowper's  Grave  " ;  in  "  A  Drama  of  Exile," 
as  well  as  in  "  The  Lost  Bower  "  and  "  Bertha,  in- 
the  Lane."  In  fine,  our  poetess  has  no  superior  or 
formidable  rival  in  this  particular  province  of 
poetic  art,  and  it  is  still  an  open  question  whether, 
as  a  writer  of  simple  lyrics,  she  may  not  be  re- 
garded as  the  first  of  our  vernacular  bards.  It  is 
from  this  point  of  view  most  especially  that  the 
cognomen  of  the  "  priestess  of  modern  English  lit- 
erature "  has  been  given  her  with  some  degree  of 
justice. 

(c)  Poetic  taste  and  skill  were  hers.  We  touch 
here  what  may  be  termed,  in  one  sense,  the 
mechanical  or  external  part  of  poetry;  the  execu- 
tion of  line  and  stanza,  somewhat  dependent,  in- 
deed, upon  the  thought  behind  it,  and,  yet,  an  art 
in  itself,  with  its  own  laws  and  methods  calling 
for  independent  study.  At  no  stage  in  the  discus- 
sion and  defense  of  Mrs.  Browning's  high  poetic 
character  is  there  more  serious  difficulty  than 
here.  Some  of  her  critics,  and  even  of  her  admir- 
ers, have  gone  so  far  as  to  deny  her  any  positive 
excellence  in  this  respect.  Others,  as  Mr.  Sted- 
man,  have  reasoned,  "  that  her  taste  never  seemed 


282  Special  Discussions' 

quite  developed,  but  subordinate  to  her  excess  of 
feeling  " ;  that  her  diction  is  too  often  careless  and 
unduly  quaint;  that  verbal  and  grammatical  elis- 
ion, inversion  and  repetition,  are  far  too  frequent, 
as  they  give  rise,  at  times,  to  the  impression  of 
affectation  or  studied  attempt  at  the  novel  and 
irregular.  On  the  one  hand,  we  are  told  that  there 
is  a  want  of  "  aesthetic  correctness,"  and  then, 
again,  that  there  is  the  presence  of  "  an  overcul- 
ture,"  by  which  excessive  care  improperly  applied 
defeats  its  own  ends,  and  results  in  the  apparent 
absence  of  care.  There  is  justice  in  these  reflec- 
tions. While  admitting  the  presence  in  Mrs. 
Browning's  verse  of  sufficient  excellence  of  verbal 
finish  to  call  her  truly  an  artist  in  her  work,  such 
excellence  is  not  so  pronounced  as  to  enforce  high 
eulogium  or  recommend  her  verse  to  students  of 
structural  English.  It  is,  moreover,  to  be  empha- 
sized that  the  poetess  herself,  in  her  earlier  lit- 
erary life,  seemed  to  be  aware  of  her  deficiency  at 
this  point.  From  the  date  of  her  marriage,  in 
1846,  midway  in  her  literary  career,  there  is  no- 
ticeable, on  to  the  close  of  her  work,  a  decided 
improvement  in  poetic  execution  and  general 
aesthetic  finish.  Something  of  this  progress  is  at- 
tributed to  the  personal  influence  of  her  gifted 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  283 

husband;  something  of  it,  as  we  have  seen,  to  her 
own  change  of  view  and  purpose;  and  something, 
we  may  add,  to  the  decided  drift  of  Modern  Eng- 
lish verse  in  the  direction  of  verbal  technique  and 
architectural  beauty.  Taking  the  sum-total  of  her 
poetry  into  account,  and  giving  her,  as  is  due, 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  she  had  in  her  nature 
what  Lathrop  has  called  "  a  sense  of  form,"  and 
was  able,  in  her  later  and  better  authorship,  to 
give  it  some  visible  expression.  It  is  thus  that  she 
may  fairly  be  said  to  have  possessed  the  three 
essential  factors  of  all  genuine  verse  —  imagina- 
tion, sensibility,  and  art.  "  Her  whole  being," 
says  Mr.  Stedman,  "  was  rhythmic."  She  was  a 
poet  by  nature  and  by  profession ;  called  to  her 
work  alike  by  divine  and  human  appointment,  and 
prosecuting  that  work,  as  Milton  did  his, 

"As  ever  in  my  great  Task-Master's  eye." 

To  that  "  Vision  of  Poets  "  which  she  so  enrapt- 
uringly  saw,  some  later  bard  is  yet  to  add  another 
vision  in  which  he  will  see  the  womanly  form  of 
Mrs.  Browning  in  sacred  fellowship  with  Milton 
and  Keats  and  the  other  sons  and  daughters  of 
song. 

3.     Practical  character  and  aim  were  hers.    This 


284  Special  Discussions 

is  a  feature  in  the  poetry  before  us  which  is 
somewhat  suggestive,  not  only  because  it  is  ex- 
hibited in  the  form  of  poetry,  but  in  the  poetry  of 
the  gentler  sex.  In  all  that  Mrs.  Browning 
wrote,  there  is  seen  a  governing  purpose  to  do 
good  service  on  behalf  of  truth.  As  she  states  in 
the  opening  lines  of  "Aurora  Leigh,"  she  had 

"  written  much  in  prose  and  verse 
For  others'  uses." 

This  is,  strangely,  even  more  apparent  in  the 
verse  than  in  the  prose,  so  that  when,  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  poem,  there  is  little  or  no  appearance 
of  the  practical,  this  utilitarian  quality  is  found  at 
the  center  of  it  as  a  controlling  motive.  In  this 
respect,  at  least,  she  evinces  a  combination  of 
imagination  and  every-day  wisdom  which  is  not 
so  fully  seen  in  any  one  of  her  distinguished  lit- 
erary successors.  The  fact  is  that  the  useful  ele- 
ment in  her  writing  was  simply  the  expression  of 
her  spiritual  nature.  She  wrote  as  she  lived,  "  for 
the  relief  of  man's  estate."  It  was  because  of  her 
deep  desire  to  make  her  work  subservient  to  her 
character  as  a  Christian  that  it  became  as  practical 
as  it  did.  Hence  the  double  end  was  secured,  of 
an  order  of  verse  •marked  by  mental  vigor  and  by 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  285 

a  pervading  principle  of  benevolence.  This  ele- 
ment of  utility  is  all  the  more  striking  in  view  of 
her  scholarly  habit  of  mind.  High  linguistic  and 
critical  attainments  are  generally  found  to  exist  in 
the  inverse  ratio  of  the  desire  to  be  personally 
useful  to  one's  generation.  With  this  erudite  au- 
thoress it  was  far  otherwise.  Her  absorbing 
study  of  Platonic  teachings  and  the  old  Greek  and 
Hebrew  made  her  none  the  kss  desirous  of  utiliz- 
ing, to  the  best  advantage,  whatever  acquisitions 
she  secured.  If  we  examine  her  various  poems 
with  this  thought  in  mind,  there  are  some  among 
them  that  stand  forth  with  special  clearness.  Such 
is  her  longest  poem,  "Aurora  Leigh,"  based  on 
the  English  life  of  her  time  and  developed  with 
constant  reference  to  it.  Among  her  shorter 
poems  of  this  character  are  "  The  Cry  of  the 
Children,"  "The  Cry  of  the  Human,"  "  Casa 
Guidi  Windows,"  "  A  Curse  for  a  Nation,"  "  First 
News  from  Villafranca,"  "  The  Forced  Recruit 
[at  Solferino],"  "Garibaldi,"  "Italy  and  the 
World,"  "  King  Victor  Emanuel  Entering  Flor- 
ence, April,  1860,"  "  Napoleon  III.  in  Italy,"  and 
"A  Song  for  the  Ragged  Schools  of  London."  So 
significant  at  times  is  this  primary  purpose  of 


286  Special  Discussions 

utility  that  it  gives  to  the  verse  a  kind  of  civic  or 
social  cast,  making  it  read  somewhat  as  many  of 
Dickens's  novels  read,  and  to  be  interpreted  in  the 
light  of  contemporary  historical  facts.  In  no  one 
particular  is  such  a  feature  more  evident  than  in 
her  profound  sense  of  justice  and  the  claims  of 
common  manhood.  In  those  poems  suggestively 
named  by  Mr.  Stedman,  "  Humanitarian,"  it  was 
not  simply  Italy  or  England  whose  interests  she 
was  defending,  but  the  cardinal  idea  of  equal  jus- 
tice to  all,  irrespective  of  creed,  nationality,  or  po- 
sition; and  defending  it  all  the  more  strenuously 
according  to  the  degree  in  which  any  class  or  na- 
tion might  be  deprived  of  it.  In  the  defense  of 
this  principle,  she  hesitated  not  to  sacrifice  health, 
and  even  reputation,  for  loyalty  to  England  when 
she  judged  her  country  deserving  of  rebuke.  In 
Modern  English  letters  she  is  the  poetess  of  the 
rights  of  man,  singing,  in  view  of  any  oppression : 
"Do  ye  hear  the  children  weeping,  O  my  brothers!  " 

It  was  this  same  womanly  sensibility  that  did 
much  to  make  her  the  poet  that  she  was,  to  place 
her  in  fullest  sympathy  with  distress,  and  to  lead 
her  to  the  dedication  of  her  powers  and  her  poetry 
to  the  alleviation  of  present  needs. 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  287 

COUNTER    CRITICISM 

There  are  two  specifically  adverse  criticisms 
that  demand  a  separate  discussion  :— 

1.  Her  narrowness  of  intellectual  range  is 
noted.  What  we  would  call  breadth  of  poetic 
genius  is  denied  her.  Our  destructive  critics 
readily  concede  all  that  has  been  said  as  to  the 
high  scholarly  character  of  her  verse,  as  to  her 
possession  of  true  poetic  passion  and  imagination, 
and,  to  some  approximate  degree,  of  poetic  taste. 
The  underlying  motive  of  her  work  as  practical 
and  its  unsullied  ethical  purity  are  granted,  while 
it  is  argued  that  there  is  a  lack  of  that  supreme 
poetic  faculty  by  which  the  seer  is  enabled  to  rise 
aloft  and  remain  there  in  the  presence  of  things 
supernal  and  thence  talk  to  men  as  one  inspired. 
We  are  told  that  Mrs.  Browning  failed  just  where 
Wordsworth  failed,  in  sublimity  of  poetic  grasp  and 
outlook,  that  the  limit  of  her  power  was  reached, 
as  his  was,  this  side  the  province  of  epic  and  dra- 
matic grandeur.  Every  candid  student  of  the  poetry 
before  us  must  admit  that  such  criticism  as  this  is 
substantially  true.  If  we  scan  the  list  of  her  pro- 
ductions, from  "  Prometheus  Bound  "  to  "Aurora 
Leigh,"  two  facts  of  prime  importance  are  notice- 


288  Special  Discussions 

able :  the  one,  that  she  wrote  in  every  existing 
literary  form  of  English  verse  —  epic,  dramatic, 
lyric,  and  reflective;  and  the  other,  that  it  was  in 
the  last  two  of  these  forms  only  that  she  may  be 
said  to  have  accomplished  distinguished  success. 
When  we  say  that  she  was  a  lyric  and  a  meditative 
poetess  of  a  high  order,  we  have  said  enough  to 
give  her  a  conspicuous  place  among  English  au- 
thors, and  yet  not  enough  to  entitle  her  to  rank 
with  the  few  masters  of  highest  song.  It  is  true, 
indeed,  that  in  "Aurora  Leigh,"  "A  Drama  of 
Exile,"  "The  Seraphim,"  "A  Vision  of  Poets," 
and  other  lesser  specimens,  she  entered  the  sphere 
of  heroic  and  histrionic  verse,  but  the  results  are 
partial,  and,  as  such,  suggestive.  Here  and  there, 
evincing  the  hand  of  a  true  master,  the  general 
quality  of  authorship  betokens  an  order  and  a 
range  of  faculty  far  below  the  masterful.  There 
is  the  absence  of  that  sustained  continuity  of 
power  essential  alike  to  epic  and  drama,  a  lack  of 
that  unity  and  comprehensiveness  of  view  and  that 
graphic  conception  of  character  and  action  that 
mark  the  greatest  bards  of  every  nation.  Her 
success,  at  these  points,  is  below  that  of  Tennyson, 
and  clearly  defines  her  position  as  rightfully  be- 
longing to  the  lower  but  important  province  of  the 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  289 

idyllic  and  contemplative.  As  she  has,  at  times, 
succeeded  where  Browning  has  failed,  she  has 
here  failed  where  her  more  intellectual  husband 
has  succeeded.  Whatever  may  be  affirmed  by  Hil- 
lard,  Tuckerman,  Stoddard,  Mitford,  and  others 
to  her  poetic  gift  and  work,  conscientious  criticism 
has  reached  its  limit  when  it  styles  her  the  first 
poetess  of  England,  while  having  no  living  supe- 
rior in  the  line  of  lyrical  richness  and  strength. 

2.  Her  tendency  to  the  morbid  and  subjective. 
Some  critics  talk  freely  of  her  work  as  visionary. 
So  discreet  a  judge  as  Stedman  speaks  of  her 
"  over  passion,"  and  adds,  of  her  poetry,  that 
"  health  is  not  its  prominent  characteristic."  Taine 
and  the  French  critics  as  a  class  find  in  this 
moroseness  of  spirit  just  what  they  expect  to  find 
in  England  and  are  satisfied.  Various  reasons  are 
assigned  for  this  state  of  mind.  With  some  it  is 
found  in  the  fact  of  her  feminine  nature  and  sym- 
pathies passing  easily  beyond  safe  limits  into  the 
region  of  the  romantic  and  unhealthful.  Some 
plausibly  assign  it  to  her  early  and  prolonged  in- 
validism  and  her  enforced  retiracy;  to  the  start- 
ling shock  experienced  at  the  drowning  of  her 
brother,  as  well  as  to  other  personal  bereavements. 
Others,  still,  attribute  it  to  the  peculiar  type  of 


290  Special  Discussions 

her  religious  faith  and  life,  especially  in  its  sym- 
pathy with  the  semi-historical  theology  of  Swe- 
denborg,  or  to  the  profound  sensitiveness  of  her 
nature  to  the  wants  and  woes  of  the  race.  Here, 
again,  we  touch  upon  a  point  of  criticism  which 
every  ingenuous  student  of  Mrs.  Browning  must 
examine.  Agreeing  with  it  in  so  far  as  to  admit 
that  there  is  too  much  of  the  plaintive  and  passive 
in  her  poetry,  we  can  go  no  further.  All  that  we 
have  said  as  to  the  intensely  practical  aim  of  her 
verse  disproves  it.  The  fact  that  she  wrote  much 
in  the  very  center  of  the  scenes  that  inspired  it 
would  disprove  it.  Her  diversified  life  between 
England  and  Italy,  'between  maidenhood  and  wife- 
hood,  between  her  natural  ability  as  a  woman  and 
her  indebtedness  for  stirring  intellectual  impulse 
to  Browning,  would  also  disprove  it.  A  candid 
examination  of  her  poetry  disproves  it.  While  it 
is  true  that  she  was  in  no  sense  a  humorist,  that 
her  verse  has  too  little  of  pleasantry  to  make  it 
widely  current,  and  that  her  warmest  admirers 
could  wish  to  see  the  presence  of  greater  flexibility, 
spontaneity,  and  life  —  this  is  not  to  say,  that  she 
thereby  passed  to  the  extreme  of  despondency  or 
that  her  poetry  is  what  Lowell  would  call  "  paro- 
chial." Our  only  marvel  is  that,  in  view  of  her 


A  Study  of  Mrs.  Browning  291 

peculiar  history,  she  wrote  as  freely  and  cheerfully 
as  she  did  and  ever  kept  in  view  the  good  of 
others.  In  those  poems  that  are  directly  elegiac 
and  plaintive  we  fail  to  discover  the  presence  of 
an  abnormal  experience  and  see  nothing  save  a 
genuine  sympathetic  tenderness  of  soul.  In  such 
a  selection  as  "  Casa  Guidi  Windows  "  the  pitiful 
never  borders  on  the  pessimistic,  while,  in  much  of 
this  politico-literary  verse,  there  is  the  very  high- 
est expression  of  heroic  hopefulness  for  Italy  and 
the  progress  of  man.  In  rare  instances,  such  as 
"  Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship,"  and  "  Bertha,"  and 
in  some  of  the  sonnets,  we  can  detect  a  playful 
pleasantry,  fully  in  keeping  with  the  introspective 
tendency  of  her  mind.  In  a  word,  the  general 
type  and  final  effect  of  her  verse  is  hopeful  and 
helpful,  .appealing  to  every  thoughtful  mind  and 
grossly  perverted  from  its  main  intent  when. quoted 
as  an  example  of  goodness  over-good.  There  is 
nothing  of  that  sad  dejection  of  spirit  that  marks 
the  prose  of  George  Eliot,  but  much  of  that  sweet 
sobriety  of  temper  that  pervades  the  pages  of  Char- 
lotte Bronte. 

Mrs.  Browning  filled  the  place  and  did  the  work 
assigned  her.  Modern  English  literature  would 
sadly  miss  her  name  and  influence.  Sufficiently  in 


292  Special  Discussions 

sympathy  with  the  literary  tendencies  of  her  time 
to  utilize  them,  she  was,  also,  sufficiently  out  of 
sympathy  with  them  to  do  a  .needed  reformatory 
work  and  purify  the  springs  of  authorship.  So 
long  as  scholarship,  fancy,  feeling,  and  rhythmic 
beauty  are  essentials  of  verse,  and  the  moral  good 
of  the  people  is  the  highest  end  of  authorship ;  so 
long  as  character  and  culture  coexist  and  make  up 
the  perfect  personality;  so  long  will  it  be  neces- 
sary for  us  to  hold  the  writings  of  Mrs.  Browning 
in  high  regard  as  marking  the  farthest  limit  yet 
attained  by  any  British  poetess. 


VIII 


THE  POETRY  OF  SWINBURNE 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE  was  born  at 
Holmwood,  near  Henly-on-the-Thames,  April  5, 
1837 ;  and  is,  thus,  the  youngest,  by  several  years, 
of  that  distinguished  circle  of  nineteenth-century 
British  poets  with  which  his  name  is  intimately 
connected.  Born  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  Ten- 
nyson and  the  Brownings,  his  life  and  work  are, 
in  fact,  more  closely  related  to  that  order  of  au- 
thors of  which  Morris,  Clough,  Jean  Ingelow,  and 
the  Rossettis  are  representative  members.  He 
may  be  said,  however,  to  be  virtually  contemporary 
with  each  of  these  groups ;  to  partake,  in  a  sense, 
of  the  qualities  of  each,  and  yet  so  to  differ  from 
them  as  to  stand  somewhat  isolated  and  to  main- 
tain a  place  and  personality  thoroughly  his  own. 
He  may  be  viewed  as  an  author  of  culture  and 
scholarly  instincts,  basing  his  work,  to  some  ex- 
tent, on  classical  and  Continental  teachings,  and 
yet  never  forgetting  the  historical  relation  of  the 
modern  to  the  ancient;  of  the  native  English  to 
293 


294  Special  Discussions 

the  foreign;  and  of  the  man  of  letters  to  the  man 
of  affairs.  It  is  suggestive  to  note,  at  the  outset, 
that  his  education  was  begun  in  France,  the  traces 
of  which  country  and  language  are,  to  an  extent, 
discernible  in  his  subsequent  work.  Afterwards, 
at  Eton  College,  he  entered  Oxford  in  1857,  as  a 
Commoner,  and,  though  taking  no  degree  in  regu- 
lar course,  received  the  full  benefit  of  university 
study.  "A  natural  scholar  and  linguist,"  as  he  has 
been  called,  he  took  pains  to  justify  and  enlarge 
these  natural  endowments  by  a  prolonged  system 
of  academic  training.  In  this  respect  he  but  adds 
another  proof  of  a  notable  fact  in  English  letters, 
that  its  most  conspicuous  names  are  as  remark- 
able for  broad  and  accurate  scholarship  as  for 
original  poetic  gift.  Even  among  other  names  of 
lesser  note,  there  are  not  a  few  who  have  been 
scholars  as  well  as  authors,  and  have  thus  main- 
tained the  historical  reputation  of  our  literary  men. 
In  turning  to  Swinburne's  specifically  literary 
work,  we  mark  a  career  of  continuous  prose  and 
verse  production  from  the  appearance  of  his  earli- 
est writings,  such  as  "  The  Queen  Mother,"  "  Rosa- 
mond," and  "Atalanta  in  Calydon  "  (1861-65),  on 
to  his  latest  contributions  to  contemporary  British 
letters  —  a  period  of  creative  and  critical  work  ex- 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  295 

tending  through  four  completed  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  His  "  Atalanta  in  Calydon," 
though  produced  in  the  very  opening  of  his  life  as 
an  author,  is  still  justly  regarded  as  one  of  his 
ablest  dramas.  Full  of  the  old  Greek  spirit,  it  em- 
phasizes the  impressive  truth  that  the  gods  cannot 
be  successfully  resisted.  Thoroughly  Hebraic  in 
its  serious  severity,  it  is  equal  in  spirit  and  poetic 
merit  to  anything  of  a  similar  classical  character 
from  the  pen  of  Arnold  or  Shelley  or  the  Anglo- 
classical  school.  In  1865  "  Chastelard  "  appeared. 
It  might  justly  be  called  "  A  Tragedy  of  Mary 
Stuart."  When  we  learn  that  it  was  withheld 
from  publication  some  time  after  its  preparation, 
it  must  be  conceded  that  the  author's  reputation 
would  have  been  materially  enhanced  Jiad  it  been 
altogether  withheld.  This  is  also  true  of  the  vol- 
ume "  Laus  Veneris,"  as  a  whole,  in  so  far  as  its 
animal  grossness  is  concerned  —  a  volume  that  for 
the  time  embittered  the  poet's  critics  and  served 
to  turn  many  well-disposed  readers  permanently 
away  from  anything  he  might  produce.  It  stands 
related  to  Swinburne's  work  and  fame  much  as 
"  Leaves  of  Grass  "  does  to  Whitman's.  This  is 
true,  though  in  the  first  edition  of  "  Poems  and 
Ballads  "  some  of  his  choicest  verse  is  found.  In 


296  Special  Discussions 

rapid  succession  appeared  "A  Song  of  Italy," 
"  Ode  on  the  Proclamation  of  the  French  Repub- 
lic," and  "  The  Songs  of  Two  Nations,"  of  whose 
history  and  people  he  was  never  weary.  Then  fol- 
lowed "  Songs  before  Sunrise,"  which  in  their  dis- 
tinct democratic  strain  might  almost  be  classed  un- 
der the  head  of  Civic  Odes.  Much  of  the  best 
work  that  Swinburne  has  done  is  seen  in  some  of 
these  shorter  specimens,  as  in  poetic  spirit  and 
wealth  of  utterance  they  have  yet  to  be  surpassed. 
In  1874  appeared  "  Bothwell,"  a  tragedy  to  which 
the  epithet  "  prodigious  "  has  been  fitly  applied,  so 
elaborate  in  its  plot  as  somewhat  to  tax  the  pa- 
tience of  the  reader.  The  following  year  "  Erech- 
theus  "  appeared.  In  1878  we  note  a  second  series 
of  "  Poems,  and  Ballads/'  followed  in  rapid  suc- 
cession by  such  collections  as  "  A  Century  of 
Roundels  and  Other  Poems/'  "  Songs  of  the 
Springtides,"  "  A  Midsummer  Holiday,  and  Other 
Poems,"  "Marino  Faliero,"  "Tristram  of  Lyon- 
esse,  and  Other  Poems,"  and  "  Studies  in  Song." 
In  1887  "  Locrine  "  was  published.  In  addition  to 
these  poetic  works  along  lyric  and  dramatic  lines, 
Swinburne  has  done  an  order  and  amount  of  work 
in  prose  criticism  and  miscellany  that  entitles  him 
to  high  repute,  and  which  must  always  be  taken 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  297 

into  account  by  those  who  are  seeking  to  assign 
him  his  true  place  in  the  literary  world.  Such  are 
the  collections,  "  Essays  and  Studies,"  "  Under  the 
Microscope  " —  a  critical  estimate  of  Poe,  Whit- 
man, and  other  American  authors,  "A  Study  of 
Ben  Jonson,"  "A  Study  of  Victor  Hugo,"  "A. 
Study  of  Shakespeare,"  "A  Note  on  Charlotte 
Bronte."  Here  is  seen,  in  verse  and  prose,  a  sub- 
stantive body  of  authorship,  indicative  of  a  wide 
mental  range  and  a  high  literary  ideal.  Swin- 
burne is  not  a  versatile  and  voluminous  poet  in 
the  sense  in  which  Browning  is,  nor  a  versatile 
prose  critic  and  essayist  in  the  sense  in  which 
Matthew  Arnold  is,  but  he  has  written  enough  in 
each  of  these  domains  to  give  him  notability  and 
to  justify  that  order  of  criticism  which  insists  on 
connecting  his  writings  with  those  of  the  Tenny- 
sonian  school. 

In  entering  upon  a  critical  view  of  his  merits 
and  limitations,  we  shall  purposely  confine  our- 
selves to  his  authorship  as  a  poet. 

1.  The  first  of  his  merits  that  impress  us  is  his 
poetic  passion.  .  This  is  one  of  the  radical  factors 
of  all  genuine  verse.  What  may  be  called  the 
three  primary  poetic  forms  are  the  Creative,  the 
Impassioned,  and  the  Artistic,  emphasizing,  in  turn, 


298  Special  Discussions 

the  sense  or  subject-matter,  the  spirit,  and  the 
structure.  It  is  the  second  of  these  characteris- 
tics that  we  are  now  noting  in  Swinburne.  It  is 
the  spirit  of  poetry  and  of  the  poet,  including  all 
that  pertains  to  sentiment  and  sensibility,  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  mental  content  of  the  poem  or  its 
metrical  structure  and  beauty.  Most  of  the  his- 
torical definitions  of  verse  have  thus  represented 
it.  Aristotle  holds  that  poetry  is  "  imitative  of  the 
passions  and  manners  of  men."  Byron  called  it 
"  the  feeling  of  past  worlds  and  present."  Milton 
insists  that  it  is  "  simple,  sensuous,  and  passion- 
ate " ;  while  Mill  suggestively  combines  the  three 
essential  elements  when  he  speaks  of  poetry  as 
"  the.  influence  of  our  feelings  over  our  thoughts, 
embodied  in  metrical  language."  Such  passion 
Swinburne's  verse  evinces  more  fully  than  does 
that  of  Morris  or  Tennyson  or  Robert  Browning, 
and  is  more  in  keeping  with  that  of  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing. There  is  no  trace  in  his  lines  of  what  has 
been  called  the  "  poet-reasoner." 

A  specific  examination  of  some  of  the  author's 
poems  will  confirm  this  judgment,  especially  his 
dramas  and  lyrics,  which  as  poetic  types  are  partic- 
ularly emotive  and  expressive.  It  is  thus  with 
"  Chastelard,"  "  The  Queen  Mother,"  "Atalanta  in 


Poetry  of  Swinburne 


Calydon,"  "  Bothwell,"  "  Locrine,"  and  other  dra- 
matic examples,  in  which  there  are  not  a  few  lyrical 
outbursts  of  exceptional  power  and  beauty.  There 
is  what  Devey  has  called  "  a  fire  and  dash  "  of 
movement  that  impresses  the  reader  and  hearer,  an 
undercurrent  and  overflow  that,  at  times,  carry  all 
before  him  and  invest  the  verse  with  the  deepest 
interest.  Such  passages  in  "  The  Queen  Mother  " 
are  sorfie  of  the  dialogues  between  Catherine  and 
Charles;  between  Henry  and  Margaret;  between 
Denise  and  Yolande.  In  "Atalanta,"  the  language 
of  Althaea,  the  Queen  of  Calydon,  is  deeply  emo- 
tive ;  while  the  different  choral  utterances  with 
which  the  play  is  interspersed  are  notable  instances 
.of  that  faculty  of  Swinburne's  by  which  dramatic 
sequence  of  movement  is  ever  and  anon  relieved 
by  the  most  flexible  and  idyllic  passages.  In 
"  Bothwell  "  one  can  scarcely  go  astray  in  the 
search  after  the  emotional.  It  pervades  the  acts 
and  scenes  as  an  inherent  literary  quality,  and 
makes  the  poem  essentially  dramatic  on  the  side  of 
tragic  feeling.  The  death  of  Rizzio  and  the  im- 
passioned outbursts  of  the  Queen,  within  and  with- 
out the  castle  ;  the  scenes  in  connection  with  the 
murder  of  Darnley,  and,  above  all,  the  fiery  invec- 
tives of  Knox,  are  but  a  few  examples  of  that 


300  Special  Discussions 

emotive  order  of  verse  of  which  we  are  speaking. 
In  "  Marino  Faliero,"  the  speeches  of  the  Doge 
and  the  Duchess,  of  Lioni  and  Stino,  are  of  the 
same  demonstrative  nature.  In  fine,  this  is  the 
controlling  feature,  and  thus  finds  its  most  natural 
and  frequent  manifestation  in  tragedy.  We  can 
scarcely  conceive  of  Swinburne's  emotional  nature 
embodying  itself  in  the  comic  drama.  Not  only  is 
his  method  too  bold  for  such  verse,  but  his  passion 
is  too  intense  and  sweeping. 

Still  more  apparent,  if  possible,  is  this  poetic 
passion  in  the  sphere  of  lyric  verse  —  its  true  and 
native  air.  The  very  titles  of  the  various  collec- 
tions will  indicate  this.  Apart  from  any  pro- 
nounced devotion  to  what  is  called  beauty  of  na- 
ture, as  seen  in  the  lines  of  Chaucer,  Burns,  and 
Wordsworth,  his  deepest  sensibilities  are  awakened 
by  all  other  forms  of  beauty,  so  that  the  range  of 
his  idyllic  verse  as  emotional  may  be  said  to  in- 
clude all  possible  expressions  of  human  feeling. 
Not  only  is  woman,  as  an  exponent  of  human  af- 
fection, one  of  his  prevailing  themes,  but  love,  in 
one  or  another  of  its  phases,  may  be  regarded  as 
the  keynote  of  his  lyrics.  One  of  the  forms  of  its 
embodiment  is  in  that  of  loyalty  to  his  country,  or 
personal  devotion  to  the  rights  of  man.  It  would 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  301 

be  a  study  of  no  little  interest,  and  one  essential 
to  the  full  interpretation  of  Swinburne,  to  examine 
his  lyrics  with  this  fact  in  view.  "  The  Songs  be- 
fore Sunrise,"  dedicated  to  Mazzini,  are  full  of 
this  civic  devotion,  as  seen,  especially,  in  "  The 
Eve  of  Revolution,"  "A  Watch  in  the  Night," 
"  Hymn  of  Man,"  and  "  The  Litany  of  Nations." 
In  "  A  Midsummer  Holiday "  brilliant  examples 
of  lyrical  satire  on  behalf  of  the  people  are  seen 
in  such  specimens  as  "  The  Twilight  of  the 
Lords  "  and  "A  Word  for  the  Country."  In  his 
collected  "  Poems  and  Ballads  "  we  note  "A  Song 
in  Time  of  Revolution,  1860,"  "A  Song  in  Time 
of  Order,  1852."  "  Songs  of  Two  Nations/'  as 
the  title  indicates, .  are  specifically  national  or  civic 
odes  as  related  to  the  political  life  of  France  and 
Italy.  The  dedication  of  some  of  his  best  poems 
to  great  national  leaders  suggests  the  same  patri- 
otic and  philanthropic  ardor,  while  the  many 
poems  personally  addressed  to  such  champions  of 
human  rights  as  Kossuth,  Victor  Hugo,  and  Maz- 
zini are  but  another  exemplification  of  this  intense 
interest  in  all  that  affects  the  common  weal.  Swin- 
burne's exaggerated  praise  of  our  American  Whit- 
man, as  among  the  first  names  in  our  poetic  an- 
nals, is  chiefly  explained  on  the  ground  of  his  dis- 


302  Special  Discussions 

tinctive  democratic  themes  and  ideals.  The  name 
"  androtheistic,"  which  has  been  applied  by  some 
critics  to  Swinburne  as  a  poet,  is  to  this  extent  a 
fitting  one,  that  the  human  feature  is  everywhere 
prominent.  Apart  from  the  political  sentiment, 
our  author  has  been  and  is  the  exponent  of  poetic 
passion.  Such  poems  as  "  In  the  Bay,"  "A  Vision 
of  Spring  in  Winter/'  "A  Song  in  Season,"  "  Four 
Songs  of  Four  Seasons,"  "  Saint  Dorothy,"  "  Be- 
fore Dawn,"  and  "  The  Garden  of  Proserpine " 
signally  evince  it.  In  "  Songs  before  Sunrise," 
such  selections  as  "  Mater  Triumphalis,"  "  Siena," 
and  "An  Appeal  "  evince  it.  In  "  A  Midsummer 
Holiday,"  "Cradle  Songs"  and  "A  Ballad  at 
Parting  "  are  lyrics  of  passion.  In  "Songs  of  the 
Springtides  "  may  be  cited  "  On  the  Cliffs  "  and 
"  Thalassius,"  while  in  "  Studies  in  Song "  the 
two  poems  "  Off  Shore  "  and  "  By  the  North  Sea  " 
especially  illustrate  the  presence  of  feeling.  In  ad- 
dition to  these  titles,  every  careful  reader  of  our 
author's  lyrics  must  have  noted  the  emphasis  of  the 
plaintive  and  memorial,  a  tenderness  of  pathos  of 
the  elegiac  order  so  marked  and  pervasive  as  to 
give  a  serious  and  pensive  cast  to  his  idyllic  verse. 
In  "  Songs  of  Two  Nations  "  there  are  no  less 
than  seventeen  specific  lyrics  under  the  caption 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  303 

"  Dirse."  Such  examples  as  "  Tenebrae,"  "  Mater 
Dolorosa,"  "  Non  Dolet,"  "A  Year's  Burden,"  "A 
Wasted  Vigil,"  "Age  and  Song,"  "  Dolores,"  and 
"  The  Triumph  of  Time,"  are  of  this  subdued  and 
chastened  tone,  while  the  commemorative  poems 
on  Mazzini,  Baudelaire,  Gautier,  and  others  nat- 
urally fall  under  the  same  category.  In  addition 
to  the  forms  of  emotive  poetry  already  cited,  there 
remains  an  order  of  lyrical  verse  in  which  Swin- 
burne may  be  said  to  have  done  his  best  poetic 
work,  and  in  which,  indeed,  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
he  is  yet  to  be  surpassed.  We  refer  to  his  songs, 
scattered  with  exquisite  taste  and  in  rich  abun- 
dance through  his  dramatic  and  lyrical  produc- 
tions. In  "Atalanta "  these  are  found  in  their 
highest  expression.  To  the  first  of  them  Stedman 
affixes  the  epithet  "  divine,"  and  adds  that  "  it 
marks  the  height  of  the  author's  lyric  reach."  The 
others  are  almost  as  notable,  opening,  respectively, 
with  the  lines: 

"  Before  the  beginning  of  years." 

"  Who   hath    given   man   speech? " 

"  We  have  seen  thee,  O  Love,  thou  art  fair." 

"  Not  as  with  sundering  of  the  earth." 

Enough  has  thus  been  said  to  show  the  distinct 
place  of  poetic  passion  in  the  verse  under  review. 


304  Special  Discussions 

With  Swinburne,  poetry  is,  first  and  last,  emotive. 
It  is  seen,  at  times,  in  extreme  and  dangerous  and 
repellent  forms,  and  it  made  it  -all  the  easier  for 
him  to  commit  some  of  the  errors  of  which  he  has 
been  guilty;  but,  in  the  main,  it'  has  been  under 
the  governance  of  good  judgment. 

.  2.  The  second  great  feature  of  merit  in  the 
verse  before  us  is  seen  in  its  poetic  art.  It  is  a 
feature  of  the  verse  because  in  the  literary  consti- 
tution and  ideal  of  the  poet  himself.  "  I  confess," 
he  writes,  "  that  I  take  delight  in  the  metrical 
forms  of  any  language  simply  for  the  meter's 
sake."  In  his  published  "  Essays  and  Reviews," 
when  discussing  such  poets  as  Morris,  Arnold, 
Shelley,  Byron,  and  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  he  is 
at  special  pains  to  call  the  attention  of  the  reader 
to  the  external  structure  of  the  verse,  to  poetry  as 
an  art.  It  would  be  possible  from  this  collection 
alone  to  gather  a  comprehensive  and  scholarly  sys- 
tem of  principles  pertaining  to  the  structure  of 
verse.  In  his  paper  on  Rossetti  he  suggestively 
writes  that  "  his  poetry  has  all  the  grace  of  force, 
and  all  the  force  of  grace.  It  is  light,  flexible,  del- 
icate and  rapid,  its  impulses  always  being  toward 
harmony  and  perfection."  Nothing  offends  Swin- 
burne more  than  to  speak  of  poetic  form  as  mere 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  305 

form,  apart  from  the  subject-matter  and  spirit  be- 
neath it,  while  he  severely  satirizes  those  one-sided 
and  but  partially  informed  critics  who  hold  that 
"  a  man  may  have  a  strong  and  perfect  style  who 
has  nothing  to  convey  with  courage  under  it." 
That  "  brilliant  faculty  of  expression  "  of  which 
Stedman  speaks  as  belonging  to  our  author  must 
be  seen  and  appreciated  by  any  careful  reader  of 
his  writings,  whether  in  verse  or  in  prose.  In  an 
age  notable  for  the  poetry  of  form  he  has  not  only 
held  his  place  among  his  distinguished  contem- 
poraries, but  has  really  opened  the  question  as  to 
his  possible  supremacy.  It  is  by  reason  of  this 
lack  of  formal  grace  and  constructive  art  that  he 
sharply  rebuked  the  poet  Morris  and  gave  to  the 
late  laureate  his  warmest  praise.  This  skill  of  hand 
is  seen  in  the  richness  and  aptness  of  his  English 
diction;  in  the  nicely  adjusted  relation  of  part  to 
part  in  the  architecture  of  a  poem  or  an  essay ;  in 
symmetry  and  naturalness  of  outline ;  in  fact,  in 
all  that  properly  belongs  to  versification  in  poetry 
and  to  construction  in  prose.  As  a  poet  he  is,  in 
the  best  sense,  a  versifier,  a  maker  of  verse,  as  a 
painter  makes  -a  picture,  or  a  sculptor  a  statue.  In 
the  Old  English  sense  of  the  word  "  poet,"  he  is  a 
shaper  of  material,  a  finished  mechanician  in  the 


306  Special  Discussions 

technic  of  the  work,  an  artist  in  verse,  happily 
combining,  as  few  combine,  the  spontaneity  of 
song  with  the  perfection  of  verbal  structure.  In 
no  one  particular  of  such  workmanship  is  he  so 
masterful  as  in  that  of  rhythm.  That  melodious 
flow  of  verse  which  follows  with  unvarying  reg- 
ularity the  accentual  intervals  of  tone  and  syllable 
has  never  been  carried  to  greater  relative  com- 
pleteness. So  resonant  is  the  movement  that 
nearly  all  his  lyrics  might  be  called  songs.  As  we 
read  them,  we  are  inclined  to  sing  them,  in  that 
they  are  musical  as  well  as  metrical,  in  accordance 
with  the  theory  of  Poe  and  Sidney  Lanier.  They 
have  that  quality  of  sonorousness  which  marks  all 
highly  rhythmic  verse,  and  which  thus  adapts  them 
to  oral  and  vocable  expression.  In  reviewing  his 
poetry  for  proof  of  this  artistic  excellence,  it  is 
quite  invidious  to  make  selection.  The  poems 
throughout  are  so  marked  by  it  that  the  reader 
may  be  asked  to  read  them  as  they  stand  upon 
the  successive  pages.  Conspicuous,  perhaps,  above 
all  others  are  the  choruses  of  the  best  dramas. 
Next  to  these  are  the  collections  of  lyrics,  "A 
Midsummer  Holiday,"  "  Songs  of  the  Spring- 
tides," "  Songs  before  Sunrise,"  "  Songs  of  Two 
Nations,"  "  Century  of  Roundels,"  and  "  Poems 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  30? 

and  Ballads."  These  idylls  and  lyrics  are  as  deli- 
cate and  beautiful  as  they  are  impassioned,  reveal- 
ing the  almost  inimitable  way  in  which  the  poet 
has  expressed  the  deepest  feeling  in  the  choicest 
phrase  and  line.  The  word  "  exquisite "  would 
well  describe  it.  Despite  an  occasional  quaintness 
of  language  and  an  unduly  free  use  of  epithet  and 
alliteration,  and  what  has  been  called  "  expres- 
sion," the  poems  as  a  whole  will  bear  the  closest 
critical  inspection.  No  Victorian  verse  will  more 
successfully  abide  such  a  test.  How  striking  and 
beautiful  is  the  variety  of  meter  which  the  poet 
employs,  purposely  relieving,  at  frequent  intervals, 
the  attention  of  the  reader,  and  carrying  him  on 
by  natural  transitions  from  one  metrical  structure 
to  another !  In  such  a  collection  as  "A  Midsummer 
Holiday,"  with  the  nine  separate  selections,  we 
note  a  wonderful  wealth  of  metrical  and  rhythmic 
art.  The  opening  lines  of  a  few  of  them  will  in- 
dicate his  resonance: — 

"The  sea  is  awake,  and  the  sound  of  the  song  of  the 
joy  of  her  waking  is  rolled." 

"  Spray  of  song  that  springs  in  April,  light  of 
love  that  laughs  through  May." 

"  East  and  north,  a  waste  of  waters,  south  and  west." 
"  The  sea  is  at  ebl>,  and  the  sound  of  her  utmost  word." 


308  Special  Discussions 

All  is  thus  varied  and  facile  and  artistically  at- 
tractive, and  it  is  musical.  Even,  in  the  author's 
prose  writings,  though  most  of  them  are  in  the 
form  of  didactic  criticism,  the  hand  of  the  poet  is 
visible.  It  is  an  order  of  prose  so  rhythmical  that 
it  is  not  only  poetical  prose,  as  is  that  of  Haw- 
thorne, but  almost  divisible  into  foot  and  line.  In 
a  word,  Swinburne  is  preeminently  a  poet,  in  that 
what  he  conceives  he  conceives  through  the  imagi- 
nation rather  than  through  the  intellect,  and  in 
deference,  first  of  all,  to  the  most  exacting  de- 
mands of  aesthetic  taste.  He  has  the  instincts  and 
the  culture  of  the  bard, -inspiration  and  execution 
in  due  relation  and  joint  activity.  He  may  thus 
be  classed  with  Burns  and  Mrs.  Browning,  as  also 
with  Keats  and  Tennyson,  and  is  a  master  in  more 
than  one  department  of  poetic  expression. 

Thus  far  by  way  of  praise;  but  there  is  also 
needed  a  word  of  adverse  comment,  pertaining 
particularly  to  the  personality  of  the  poet  as  it 
reveals  itself  in  the  character  and  impression  of 
his  verse.  We  note  two  blemishes  of  special 
prominence. 

1.  The  first  blemish  is  the  undue  presence  of 
the  sensual.  Mr.  Selkirk,  in  his  able  discussion 
"  Ethics  and  ^Esthetics,"  would  sharply  rebuke  our 


The  Poetry  of  Szvinburne  309 

author  here  for  his  unnatural  divorce  of  these 
two  forms  of  literary  art.  Even  so  free-handed  a 
critic  as  Le  Gallienne,  in  his  "  Religion  of  a  Lit- 
erary Man,"  would  rebuke  it.  Devey  speaks  of  his 
verse  as  "  pagan  and  voluptuous,"  belonging  to 
the  "  blase  style  of  the  modern  school  of  French 
novelists."  He  represents  that  "  fleshly  school  " 
of  English  and  Continental  verse  which  even  yet 
has  far  too  large  a  following.  That  poetic  pas- 
sion of  which  we  have  spoken,  so  commendable  in 
its  place,  is  thus,  at  times,  grossly  abused  in  the 
line  of  the  lower  instincts.  Genuine  sentiment  is 
too  often  confounded  with  sensuality.  That 
"  sensuous  "  element  of  which  Milton  speaks  as 
essential  to  verse  is  totally  different  from  that 
sensual  element  that  finds  its  most  congenial  exer- 
cise in  the  morally  questionable,  and  aims  directly 
at  the  exaltation  of  animalism.  In  the  review  of 
this  blemish,  however,  upon  the  good  name  and 
work  of  Swinburne,  care  must  be  taken  lest  the 
rebuke  be  too  sweeping.  As  to  the  author's  earli- 
est verse,  no  apology  should  be  made.  It  is  low 
and  carnal,  and  as  unworthy  in  itself  as  it  is  of 
the  better  antecedents  of  English  letters.  So  de- 
cided is  the  offense  against  literary  ethics  that  it 
is  possible  that  the  poet  may  never  wholly  redeem 


310  Special  Discussions 

his  record  in  the  eyes  of  the  soundest  criticism. 
Swinburne's  later  verse  is  substantially  free  from 
these  violations  of  moral  law.  "  Not  a  note  has 
been  uttered,"  says  Stedman,  "  to  which  the  most 
rigid  of  moralists  can  honestly  object."  Existing 
objections,  therefore,  must  refer  less  to  any  open 
transgressions  than  to  the  absence  of  high  spirit- 
ual tone,  that  exalted  refinement  of  thought  and 
word  which  would  seem  to  be  germane  to  the  very 
nature  and  ideals  of  poetry  as  one  of  the  fine  arts. 
Critics  thus  rightly  contrast  Swinburne  and  Ten- 
nyson as  to  their  respective  representations  of 
womanhood  and,  in  general,  as  to  what  may  be 
styled  their  respective  ethical  attitude  and  outlook. 
It  is  quite  too  evident,  as  we  read,  that  the  surviv- 
ing poet  is  still  under  Continental  influence  more 
fully  than  it  is  safe  to  be.  It  is  this  that  gives  to 
his  conception  of  love  that  peculiar  quality  and 
feature  that  connects  it  with  the  lower  rather  than 
the  higher  view,  and  inclines  us  to  repair  to  the 
more  tonic  and  wholesome  pages  of  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing and  Robert  Browning  and  the  clean-minded  au- 
thor of  "  Godiva  "  and  "  Enoch  Arden." 

2.  A  second  blemish  is  found  in  the  undue 
presence  of  the  skeptical.  In  this  particular,  there 
has  been  far  less  change  for  the  better  in  the  poet's 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  311 

later  work.  Though  he  has  not  shocked  the  moral 
sense  of  England  as  he  did  at  the  outset,  we  look 
in  vain  for  any  radical  change  of  view  or  purpose. 
We  note,  throughout,  a  strange  unreligious  med- 
ley of  pantheism,  materialism,  and  bald  atheism, 
anything  but  biblical  theism.  Poetic  passion  at 
times  overreaches  itself  in  vindictive  utterances 
against  the  accepted  doctrines  of  Christendom,  if 
not,  indeed,  of  natural  religion.  As  has  been  said 
of  him,  "  He  tramples  upon  Christian  dogmas  with 
the  spirit  of  Celsus."  In  some  of  his  shorter  po- 
ems, as  "  Ilicet "  arid  "  The  Garden  of  Proser- 
pine," this  objectionable,  non-religious  sentiment 
finds  place,  as  we  read  in  the  latter: — 

"  From  too  much  love  of  living, 

From  hope   and  fear   set  free, 
We  thank   with  brief   thanksgiving, 

Whatever   gods  may   be, 
That  no   life  lives  forever; 
That   dead  men  rise  up   never; 
That    even    the   weariest   river 

Winds  somewhere  safe  to  sea." 

This  is  blank  and  cheerless  sentiment,  expressed  in 
terms  of  the  baldest  indifference,  as  to  what  is  or 
is  not,  as  to  what  may  or  may  not  be.  So  in  his 
poems  "  Before  a  Crucifix,"  "  Hymn  of  Man," 
"Genesis,"  "In  the  Bay,"  "  Felise,"  and  others. 


312  Special  Discussions 

All  this  is  Byronic,  and  reminds  us,  in  parts,  of 
the  days  of  Dryden  and  Charles  the  Second.  There 
are  separate  passages,  and  even  poems,  in  Swin- 
burne that  seem  to  be  purely  theistic.  There  are 
many  places  in  which,  as  he  now  confesses,  Ro- 
manism is  accepted  as  preferable  to  that  Prot- 
estant faith  and  order  which  he  is  inclined  to 
satirize.  He  praises  Robert  Browning  and  Car- 
dinal Newman  in  that  they  have  escaped  "  such 
viler  forms  and  more  hideous  outcomes  of  Chris- 
tianity." He  congratulates  Rossetti  in  that  his 
name  is  not  to  be  found  among  "those  passionate 
evangelists  of  positive  beliefs  "  who  dwarf  them- 
selves and  their  fellows  by  the  restrictions  of 
creed.  In  fact,  the  poet  takes  his  own  way,  de- 
spite all  English  tradition  and  teaching  to  the  con- 
trary, and  persists  in  his  unchristian  and  anti- 
christian  attitude.  He  is  an  out-and-out  free- 
thinker in  the  sphere  of  verse,  and,  even  when 
employing  an  evangelical  terminology,  is  in  spirit 
defiant  enough  to  lead  his  devotees  straight  to  the 
negation  of  -all  accepted  beliefs.  All  this  is  peril- 
ous to  what  is  best  in  modern  letters,  and  doubly 
so  from  the  fact  that  the  sensualism  and  the  skep- 
ticism alike  are  embodied  in  finished  form  and  ex- 
press, in  many  instances,  the  highest  results  of  ar- 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  313 

tistic  skill  in  verse.  It  is  singularly  fortunate, 
however,  that  among  our  eminent  modern  poets 
Swinburne  stands  alone  in  this  regard,  widely  sep- 
arated, as  he  is,  from  Morris  and  Tennyson  and 
the  Brownings,  as  also  from  such  of  his  contem- 
poraries as  Edwin  Arnold  and  William  Watson 
and  Alfred  Austin,  —  a  signal  example  of  a  liter- 
ary monopolist  in  the  abuse  and  misuse  of  special 
trusts  and  gifts. 

As  to  the  prose  of  Swinburne,  it  is  not  our  pur- 
pose to  write  at  length,  as  this  part  of  his  author- 
ship is  seen  in  his  "  Essays  and  Studies,"  "  Mis- 
cellanies," "  Studies  in  Prose  and  Poetry,"  and 
studies,  respectively,  of  "  Ben  Jonson,"  "  Victor 
Hugo,"  and  "  Shakespeare."  It  is,  however,  im- 
portant and  gratifying  to  state  that  he  is  in  his 
prose  often  at  his  best,  intellectually  and  ethically, 
and  has  made  a  valid  contribution  to  British  let- 
ters. Characteristically  free,  as  the  discussions 
themselves  demand,  from  any  overt  violation  of 
moral  propriety,  and  pervaded  by  a  clearly  defined 
purpose  to  enlighten  and  stimulate  his  readers, 
they  serve  to  institute  an  amount  of  difference  be- 
tween the  poet  and  prose  writer  rarely  seen  in  lit- 
erary annals,  and  not  at  all  in  those  of  England. 
Despite  the  most  conspicuous  faults  of  his  prose, 


3 14  Special  Discussions' 

a  degree  of  undue  ornament,  and  an  over-statement 
and  verboseness,  and  one-sided  judgments,  his 
various  essays  and  studies  well  deserve  the  atten- 
tion of  every  student  of  our  vernacular  literature. 
Some  of  our  best  critics  see  no  evidence  of  last- 
ing fame  in  the  poetry  of  Swinburne,  and  assign 
it  well  down  in  the  secondary  order  of  English 
verse.  A  more  generous  criticism  regards  our  au- 
thor as  "  the  foremost  of  the  younger  school  of 
British  poets,"  the  exponent  of  "  another  cycle  of 
creative  song."  In  determining,  therefore,  the 
rightful  status  of  such  a  poet,  it  must  first  be 
clearly  ascertained  just  what  we  mean  by  poetry. 
If  it  consists  in  the  emotive  and  aesthetic  only, 
Swinburne's  place  is  assured  among  the  best  of 
bards.  If  it  involve,  also,  high  creative  function 
and  philosophic  imagination,  his  rank  must  be 
lower.  The  test  is  just  here.  A  careful  study  of 
his  poetic  work  will  show  us,  as  we  have  suggest- 
ed, that  he  writes  upon  the  level  of  sentiment  and 
structure  rather  than  upon  that  of  original  con- 
ception and  ideal.  There  is  here,  therefore,  a  clear 
limitation  of  range.  Not  only  has  he  written  no 
epic,  but  could  not,  in  so  far  as  we  can  see,  suc- 
cessfully have  produced  one,  any  more  than  Burns 
could  have  done  so.  He  lacks  the  epic  reach  and 


The  Poetry  of  Swinburne  315 

function,  though  some  critics  have  strongly  in- 
sisted that  they  detect  in  his  verse  an  epic  feature 
and  ability.  He  finds  his  province  and  his  limit 
within  the  lyric,  idyllic,  and  semi-dramatic.  If  he 
has,  in  a  sense,  succeeded  as  a  dramatist  in  "Ata- 
lanta  "  and  "  Bothwell,"  he  has  failed  in  other  dra- 
matic attempts,  and  sufficiently  often  to  mark  the 
absence  of  that  sustained  histrionic  power  which 
indicates  the  master.  As  already  suggested,  it  is 
in  prose  criticism  and  description,  as  in  his  "  Study 
of  Shakespeare,"  that  his  mental  powers  find  their 
fullest  exercise.  If  confined,  however,  to  his  poet- 
ry, we  must  assign  him  to  the  second  group  of 
nineteenth-century  authors,  by  reason  of  his  fail- 
ure in  the  line  of  the  inventive  and  constructive. 
There  is  no  "  faculty  divine/'  no  wide  dramatic 
outlook,  no  profound  lyric  note,  nothing  of  that 
Dantean  order  whose  native  air  is  among  things 
supernal  and  inspiring.  We  find  in  Swinburne  an 
exquisite  artist  of  what  Sidney  Lanier  has  called, 
the  science  of  verse.  We  find  lyric  feeling,  deli- 
cacy of  taste  and  tone  and  touch  —  in  a  word, 
finish,  form,  art.  Swinburne  is  a  litterateur  in  the 
South-European  sense  of  the  term ;  an  exponent  of 
harmony  and  poetic  culture ;  a  stylist  in  verse.  Just 
to  the  degree  in  which  the  poetic  drift  of  the  age 


316  Special  Discussions 

is  toward  verbal  affluence  and  aesthetic  elegance  of 
phrase  and  line,  he  may  be  said  to  be  in  sympathy 
with  it,  as  he  is  also  unfortunately  in  sympathy 
with  it  just  to  the  degree  in  which  the  philosophic 
and  religious  drift  is  toward  indifrerentism  and  the 
bold  negation  of  fundamental  truth.  To  the  de- 
gree, however,  in  which  the  poetic  drift  is  toward 
a  broad  and  high  intellectual  outlook,  and  the  phil- 
osophic and  religious  drift  is  toward  evangelical 
faith,  or  what  Mr.  Balfour  calls  the  foundations 
of  belief,  his  verse  is  out  of  touch  with  his  time, 
and  cannot  minister  to  us  in  the  hours  of  our  deep- 
est needs. 


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-j 

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Beers's    English    Romanticism    in    the    Eighteenth 

Century. 

Burrell's  Johnson. 
Burrell's  Obiter  Dicta   (Vol.  I). 
Calvin's  Life  of  Keats. 
Carruther's  Life  of  Pope. 
Chesterton's  Browning. 
Cooke's  Poets  and  Problems. 

Corson's  Introduction  to  the-  Study  of  Browning. 
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Dowden's  Shakespeare's  Mind  and  Art. 
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Hutton's   (R.H.)  Essays   (Vol.  II). 
Ingram's  Life  of  Mrs.  Browning. 
317 


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Spingarn's  Literary  Criticism  of  the  Renaissance. 

Stedman's  Nature  of  Poetry. 

Stedman's  Victorian  Poets.. 

Stephen's  Johnson. 

Stephen's  Pope. 

Taine's  English  Literature. 

Whipple's  Literature  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth. 

Winchester's  Principles  of  Literary  Criticism. 

Worsfold's  Principles  of  Criticism. 

Wylie's  Evolution  of  English  Criticism, 


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